Relationship management in an E-commerce application framework

ABSTRACT

A system and method are provided for interacting with a user over a network for personalizing a website. A user is identified and information about the user is collected. A profile of the user is built based on the collected information and a plurality of different contents are managed. The profile and the contents are analyzed in order to match attributes of the profile of the user and attributes of the contents. The contents which have attributes that match the attributes of the profile of the user are then selected and delivered to the user. The user is allowed to manually select which of the delivered contents are depicted on a display. The user is also allowed to selectively position the delivered contents on the display.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. Patent Applications entitled ASYSTEM, METHOD AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR A DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTUREFRAMEWORK and A SYSTEM, METHOD AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR BASESERVICES PATTERNS IN A NETCENTRIC ENVIRONMENT, both of which are filedconcurrently herewith and which are incorporated by reference in theirentirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to software for interacting with a userover a network and more particularly to interacting with a client userin an e-Commerce environment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

An important use of computers is the transfer of information over anetwork. Currently, the largest computer network in existence is theInternet. The Internet is a worldwide interconnection of computernetworks that communicate using a common protocol. Millions ofcomputers, from low end personal computers to high-end super computersare coupled to the Internet.

The Internet grew out of work funded in the 1960s by the U.S. DefenseDepartment's Advanced Research Projects Agency. For a long time,Internet was used by researchers in universities and nationallaboratories to share information. As the existence of the Internetbecame more widely known, many users outside of the academic/researchcommunity (e.g., employees of large corporations) started to useInternet to carry electronic mail.

In 1989, a new type of information system known as the World-Wide-Web(“the Web”) was introduced to the Internet. Early development of the Webtook place at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. The Web isa wide-area hypermedia information retrieval system aimed to give wideaccess to a large universe of documents. At that time, the Web was knownto and used by the academic/research community only. There was no easilyavailable tool which allows a technically untrained person to access theWeb.

In 1993, researchers at the National Center for SupercomputingApplications (NCSA) released a Web browser called “Mosaic” thatimplemented a graphical user interface (GUI). Mosaic's graphical userinterface was simple to learn yet powerful. The Mosaic browser allows auser to retrieve documents from the World-Wide-Web using simplepoint-and-click commands. Because the user does not have to betechnically trained and the browser is pleasant to use, it has thepotential of opening up the Internet to the masses.

The architecture of the Web follows a conventional client-server model.The terms “client” and “server” are used to refer to a computer'sgeneral role as a requester of data (the client) or provider of data(the server). Under the Web environment, Web browsers reside in clientsand Web documents reside in servers. Web clients and Web serverscommunicate using a protocol called “HyperText Transfer Protocol”(HTTP). A browser opens a connection to a server and initiates a requestfor a document. The server delivers the requested document, typically inthe form of a text document coded in a standard Hypertext MarkupLanguage (HTML) format, and when the connection is closed in the aboveinteraction, the server serves a passive role, i.e., it accepts commandsfrom the client and cannot request the client to perform any action.

The communication model under the conventional Web environment providesa very limited level of interaction between clients and servers. In manysystems, increasing the level of interaction between components in thesystems often makes the systems more robust, but increasing theinteraction increases the complexity of the interaction and typicallyslows the rate of the interaction. Thus, the conventional Webenvironment provides less complex, faster interactions because of theWeb's level of interaction between clients and servers.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A system and method are provided for interacting with a user over anetwork for personalizing a website. A user is identified andinformation about the user is collected. A profile of the user is builtbased on the collected information and a plurality of different contentsare managed. The profile and the contents are analyzed in order to matchattributes of the profile of the user and attributes of the contents.The contents which have attributes that match the attributes of theprofile of the user are then selected and delivered to the user. Theuser is allowed to manually select which of the delivered contents aredepicted on a display. The user is also allowed to selectively positionthe delivered contents on the display.

In an aspect of the present invention, the analysis of the profile mayoccur in real time. In another aspect of the present invention, the usermay be identified by using a cookie, receiving user input, and digitalcertificates.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a time when the user lastviewed the contents may also be identified with portions of the contentsthat have been modified or added since the time when the user lastviewed the contents being indicated. In another embodiment of thepresent invention, the user may also be allowed to rate the contents.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a potential customermay be selected from a plurality of users and an act may be performed toentice the potential customer to become a real customer. Also, anactivity may further be conducted to retain a current customer and ademand generating application may be provided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be better understood when consideration is given tothe following detailed description thereof. Such description makesreference to the annexed drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a hardware implementation of oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating a high level overview of anarchitecture;

FIG. 3 shows the dependencies of three architecture frameworks;

FIG. 4 illustrates a delivery vehicle matrix;

FIG. 5 illustrates a Delivery Vehicle Cube;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram depicting considerations to be taken intoconsideration when identifying the core technologies to be used in anarchitecture;

FIG. 7 is a chart that can be utilized to determine whether to useNetcentric technology;

FIG. 8 is a chart that can be utilized to determine whether to useClient Server technology;

FIG. 9 is a chart that can be utilized to determine whether to use Hosttechnology;

FIG. 10 illustrates an eCommerce Application Framework in a DevelopmentArchitecture Framework;

FIG. 11 illustrates the relationship between the eCommerce ApplicationFramework, possible eCommerce Selling Models, enabling technology, andenabling eCommerce Software Packages;

FIG. 12 illustrates a flowchart for a method for automated performanceof services on a network in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 13 shows an agent of the eCommerce Application Framework inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14 illustrates a flowchart for a method for suggesting productsover a network in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 15 illustrates the merchandising component of the eCommerceApplication Framework of the present invention;

FIG. 16 illustrates a flowchart for a method for interacting with a userover a network for personalizing a website in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 17 depicts the Relationship Management section of the eCommerceApplication Framework in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 18 illustrates a conceptual personalization architecture forimplementing the Relationship Management section of the eCommerceApplication Framework;

FIG. 19 illustrates a simple personalization process;

FIG. 20 is a graphical depiction of extents of personalization;

FIG. 21 illustrates a content catalog that can be used to manage anenterprise's content;

FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary template with three Dynamic ContentAreas (DCAs) embedded within the template in accordance with a method ofassociating a rule and content to an interaction;

FIG. 23 depicts a ShARE (Selection, Acquisition, Retention, andExtension) customer relationship model which addresses the changes in ashift to interactive marketing;

FIG. 24 illustrates a flowchart for a method for administrating ane-Commerce system on a network in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 25 illustrates components of the maintenance and administrationportion of the of the eCommerce Application Framework in accordance withone embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 26 illustrates the Order Processing portion of the eCommerceApplication Framework of the present invention;

FIG. 27 illustrates a flowchart for a method for completing atransaction over a network in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 28 depicts an example flow of business capabilities needed forcomplete order processing on an eCommerce implementation;

FIG. 29 illustrates a flowchart for a method for electronically servinga customer over a network in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 30 illustrates key customer services of the Customer Servicesportion of the eCommerce Application Framework;

FIG. 31 illustrates the Security component of the eCommerce ApplicationFramework in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 32 illustrates a flowchart for a method for ensuring security of ane-Commerce system on a network in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 33 shows a sample architecture in an online advertising scenario;

FIG. 34 illustrates an exemplary security architecture in an onlineadvertising scenario;

FIG. 35 depicts a sample architecture providing direct network access toseveral of customers in order to share specifications, distributeengineering designs, and collaborate on works in progress;

FIG. 36 depicts another exemplary Security Architecture in the scenarioof FIG. 35;

FIG. 37 shows a sample architecture in an interactive customer supportscenario;

FIG. 38 illustrates an exemplary security architecture in a customersupport scenario;

FIG. 39 depicts a sample architecture in an online banking scenario;

FIG. 40 shows an exemplary security architecture in an online bankingscenario;

FIG. 41 illustrates a sample architecture in an online shoppingscenario;

FIG. 42 shows an exemplary security architecture in an online shoppingscenario;

FIG. 43 illustrates a flowchart for a method for manipulating data abouta customer in an e-Commerce environment in accordance with an embodimentof the present invention;

FIG. 44 illustrates the Decision Support component of the eCommerceApplication Framework in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 45 illustrates the Integration component of the eCommerceApplication Framework in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 46 illustrates a flowchart for a method for integrating ane-Commerce component into an existing framework of an enterprise inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

DISCLOSURE OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

A preferred embodiment of a system in accordance with the presentinvention is preferably practiced in the context of a personal computersuch as an IBM compatible personal computer, Apple Macintosh computer orUNIX based workstation. A representative hardware environment isdepicted in FIG. 1, which illustrates a typical hardware configurationof a workstation in accordance with a preferred embodiment having acentral processing unit 110, such as a microprocessor, and a number ofother units interconnected via a system bus 112. The workstation shownin FIG. 1 includes a Random Access Memory (RAM) 114, Read Only Memory(ROM) 116, an I/O adapter 118 for connecting peripheral devices such asdisk storage units 120 to the bus 112, a user interface adapter 122 forconnecting a keyboard 124, a mouse 126, a speaker 128, a microphone 132,and/or other user interface devices such as a touch screen (not shown)to the bus 112, communication adapter 134 for connecting the workstationto a communication network (e.g., a data processing network) and adisplay adapter 136 for connecting the bus 112 to a display device 138.The workstation typically has resident thereon an operating system suchas the Microsoft Windows NT or Windows/95 Operating System (OS), the IBMOS/2 operating system, the MAC OS, or UNIX operating system. Thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention may alsobe implemented on platforms and operating systems other than thosementioned.

A preferred embodiment is written using JAVA, C, and the C++ languageand utilizes object oriented programming methodology. Object orientedprogramming (OOP) has become increasingly used to develop complexapplications. As OOP moves toward the mainstream of software design anddevelopment, various software solutions require adaptation to make useof the benefits of OOP. A need exists for these principles of OOP to beapplied to a messaging interface of an electronic messaging system suchthat a set of OOP classes and objects for the messaging interface can beprovided.

OOP is a process of developing computer software using objects,including the steps of analyzing the problem, designing the system, andconstructing the program. An object is a software package that containsboth data and a collection of related structures and procedures. Sinceit contains both data and a collection of structures and procedures, itcan be visualized as a self-sufficient component that does not requireother additional structures, procedures or data to perform its specifictask. OOP, therefore, views a computer program as a collection oflargely autonomous components, called objects, each of which isresponsible for a specific task. This concept of packaging data,structures, and procedures together in one component or module is calledencapsulation.

In general, OOP components are reusable software modules which presentan interface that conforms to an object model and which are accessed atrun-time through a component integration architecture. A componentintegration architecture is a set of architecture mechanisms which allowsoftware modules in different process spaces to utilize each otherscapabilities or functions. This is generally done by assuming a commoncomponent object model on which to build the architecture. It isworthwhile to differentiate between an object and a class of objects atthis point. An object is a single instance of the class of objects,which is often just called a class. A class of objects can be viewed asa blueprint, from which many objects can be formed.

OOP allows the programmer to create an object that is a part of anotherobject. For example, the object representing a piston engine is said tohave a composition-relationship with the object representing a piston.In reality, a piston engine comprises a piston, valves and many othercomponents; the fact that a piston is an element of a piston engine canbe logically and semantically represented in OOP by two objects.

OOP also allows creation of an object that “depends from” anotherobject. If there are two objects, one representing a piston engine andthe other representing a piston engine wherein the piston is made ofceramic, then the relationship between the two objects is not that ofcomposition. A ceramic piston engine does not make up a piston engine.Rather it is merely one kind of piston engine that has one morelimitation than the piston engine; its piston is made of ceramic. Inthis case, the object representing the ceramic piston engine is called aderived object, and it inherits all of the aspects of the objectrepresenting the piston engine and adds further limitation or detail toit. The object representing the ceramic piston engine “depends from” theobject representing the piston engine. The relationship between theseobjects is called inheritance.

When the object or class representing the ceramic piston engine inheritsall of the aspects of the objects representing the piston engine, itinherits the thermal characteristics of a standard piston defined in thepiston engine class. However, the ceramic piston engine object overridesthese ceramic specific thermal characteristics, which are typicallydifferent from those associated with a metal piston. It skips over theoriginal and uses new functions related to ceramic pistons. Differentkinds of piston engines have different characteristics, but may have thesame underlying functions associated with it (e.g., how many pistons inthe engine, ignition sequences, lubrication, etc.). To access each ofthese functions in any piston engine object, a programmer would call thesame functions with the same names, but each type of piston engine mayhave different/overriding implementations of functions behind the samename. This ability to hide different implementations of a functionbehind the same name is called polymorphism and it greatly simplifiescommunication among objects.

With the concepts of composition-relationship, encapsulation,inheritance and polymorphism, an object can represent just aboutanything in the real world. In fact, logical perception of the realityis the only limit on determining the kinds of things that can becomeobjects in object-oriented software. Some typical categories are asfollows:

Objects can represent physical objects, such as automobiles in atraffic-flow simulation, electrical components in a circuit-designprogram, countries in an economics model, or aircraft in anair-traffic-control system.

Objects can represent elements of the computer-user environment such aswindows, menus or graphics objects.

An object can represent an inventory, such as a personnel file or atable of the latitudes and longitudes of cities.

An object can represent user-defined data types such as time, angles,and complex numbers, or points on the plane.

With this enormous capability of an object to represent just about anylogically separable matters, OOP allows the software developer to designand implement a computer program that is a model of some aspects ofreality, whether that reality is a physical entity, a process, a system,or a composition of matter. Since the object can represent anything, thesoftware developer can create an object which can be used as a componentin a larger software project in the future.

If 90% of a new OOP software program consists of proven, existingcomponents made from preexisting reusable objects, then only theremaining 10% of the new software project has to be written and testedfrom scratch. Since 90% already came from an inventory of extensivelytested reusable objects, the potential domain from which an error couldoriginate is 10% of the program. As a result, OOP enables softwaredevelopers to build objects out of other, previously built objects.

This process closely resembles complex machinery being built out ofassemblies and sub-assemblies. OOP technology, therefore, makes softwareengineering more like hardware engineering in that software is builtfrom existing components, which are available to the developer asobjects. All this adds up to an improved quality of the software as wellas an increased speed of its development.

Programming languages are beginning to fully support the OOP principles,such as encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, andcomposition-relationship. With the advent of the C++ language, manycommercial software developers have embraced OOP. C++ is an OOP languagethat offers a fast, machine-executable code. Furthermore, C++ issuitable for both commercial-application and systems-programmingprojects. For now, C++ appears to be the most popular choice among manyOOP programmers, but there is a host of other OOP languages, such asSmalltalk, Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), and Eiffel. Additionally,OOP capabilities are being added to more traditional popular computerprogramming languages such as Pascal.

The benefits of object classes can be summarized, as follows:

Objects and their corresponding classes break down complex programmingproblems into many smaller, simpler problems.

Encapsulation enforces data abstraction through the organization of datainto small, independent objects that can communicate with each other.Encapsulation protects the data in an object from accidental damage, butallows other objects to interact with that data by calling the object'smember functions and structures.

Subclassing and inheritance make it possible to extend and modifyobjects through deriving new kinds of objects from the standard classesavailable in the system. Thus, new capabilities are created withouthaving to start from scratch.

Polymorphism and multiple inheritance make it possible for differentprogrammers to mix and match characteristics of many different classesand create specialized objects that can still work with related objectsin predictable ways.

Class hierarchies and containment hierarchies provide a flexiblemechanism for modeling real-world objects and the relationships amongthem.

Libraries of reusable classes are useful in many situations, but theyalso have some limitations. For example:

Complexity. In a complex system, the class hierarchies for relatedclasses can become extremely confusing, with many dozens or evenhundreds of classes.

Flow of control. A program written with the aid of class libraries isstill responsible for the flow of control (i.e., it must control theinteractions among all the objects created from a particular library).The programmer has to decide which functions to call at what times forwhich kinds of objects.

Duplication of effort. Although class libraries allow programmers to useand reuse many small pieces of code, each programmer puts those piecestogether in a different way. Two different programmers can use the sameset of class libraries to write two programs that do exactly the samething but whose internal structure (i.e., design) may be quitedifferent, depending on hundreds of small decisions each programmermakes along the way. Inevitably, similar pieces of code end up doingsimilar things in slightly different ways and do not work as welltogether as they should.

Class libraries are very flexible. As programs grow more complex, moreprogrammers are forced to reinvent basic solutions to basic problemsover and over again. A relatively new extension of the class libraryconcept is to have a framework of class libraries. This framework ismore complex and consists of significant collections of collaboratingclasses that capture both the small scale patterns and major mechanismsthat implement the common requirements and design in a specificapplication domain. They were first developed to free applicationprogrammers from the chores involved in displaying menus, windows,dialog boxes, and other standard user interface elements for personalcomputers.

Frameworks also represent a change in the way programmers think aboutthe interaction between the code they write and code written by others.In the early days of procedural programming, the programmer calledlibraries provided by the operating system to perform certain tasks, butbasically the program executed down the page from start to finish, andthe programmer was solely responsible for the flow of control. This wasappropriate for printing out paychecks, calculating a mathematicaltable, or solving other problems with a program that executed in justone way.

The development of graphical user interfaces began to turn thisprocedural programming arrangement inside out. These interfaces allowthe user, rather than program logic, to drive the program and decidewhen certain actions should be performed. Today, most personal computersoftware accomplishes this by means of an event loop which monitors themouse, keyboard, and other sources of external events and calls theappropriate parts of the programmer's code according to actions that theuser performs. The programmer no longer determines the order in whichevents occur. Instead, a program is divided into separate pieces thatare called at unpredictable times and in an unpredictable order. Byrelinquishing control in this way to users, the developer creates aprogram that is much easier to use. Nevertheless, individual pieces ofthe program written by the developer still call libraries provided bythe operating system to accomplish certain tasks, and the programmermust still determine the flow of control within each piece after it'scalled by the event loop. Application code still “sits on top of” thesystem.

Even event loop programs require programmers to write a lot of code thatshould not need to be written separately for every application. Theconcept of an application framework carries the event loop conceptfurther. Instead of dealing with all the nuts and bolts of constructingbasic menus, windows, and dialog boxes and then making these things allwork together, programmers using application frameworks start withworking application code and basic user interface elements in place.Subsequently, they build from there by replacing some of the genericcapabilities of the framework with the specific capabilities of theintended application.

Application frameworks reduce the total amount of code that a programmerhas to write from scratch. However, because the framework is really ageneric application that displays windows, supports copy and paste, andso on, the programmer can also relinquish control to a greater degreethan event loop programs permit. The framework code takes care of almostall event handling and flow of control, and the programmer's code iscalled only when the framework needs it (e.g., to create or manipulate aproprietary data structure).

A programmer writing a framework program not only relinquishes controlto the user (as is also true for event loop programs), but alsorelinquishes the detailed flow of control within the program to theframework. This approach allows the creation of more complex systemsthat work together in interesting ways, as opposed to isolated programs,having custom code, being created over and over again for similarproblems.

Thus, as is explained above, a framework basically is a collection ofcooperating classes that make up a reusable design solution for a givenproblem domain. It typically includes objects that provide defaultbehavior (e.g., for menus and windows), and programmers use it byinheriting some of that default behavior and overriding other behaviorso that the framework calls application code at the appropriate times.

There are three main differences between frameworks and class libraries:

Behavior versus protocol. Class libraries are essentially collections ofbehaviors that can call when those individual behaviors are desired inthe program. A framework, on the other hand, provides not only behaviorbut also the protocol or set of rules that govern the ways in whichbehaviors can be combined, including rules for what a programmer issupposed to provide versus what the framework provides.

Call versus override. With a class library, the code the programmerinstantiates objects and calls their member functions. It's possible toinstantiate and call objects in the same way with a framework (i.e., totreat the framework as a class library), but to take full advantage of aframework's reusable design, a programmer typically writes code thatoverrides and is called by the framework. The framework manages the flowof control among its objects. Writing a program involves dividingresponsibilities among the various pieces of software that are called bythe framework rather than specifying how the different pieces shouldwork together.

Implementation versus design. With class libraries, programmers reuseonly implementations, whereas with frameworks, they reuse design. Aframework embodies the way a family of related programs or pieces ofsoftware work. It represents a generic design solution that can beadapted to a variety of specific problems in a given domain. Forexample, a single framework can embody the way a user interface works,even though two different user interfaces created with the sameframework might solve quite different interface problems.

Thus, through the development of frameworks for solutions to variousproblems and programming tasks, significant reductions in the design anddevelopment effort for software can be achieved. A preferred embodimentof the invention utilizes HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to implementdocuments on the Internet together with a general-purpose securecommunication protocol for a transport medium between the client and theNewco. HTTP or other protocols could be readily substituted for HTMLwithout undue experimentation. HTML is a simple data format used tocreate hypertext documents that are portable from one platform toanother. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics thatare appropriate for representing information from a wide range ofdomains. HTML has been in use by the World-Wide Web global informationinitiative since 1990. HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879; 1986Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard GeneralizedMarkup Language (SGML).

To date, Web development tools have been limited in their ability tocreate dynamic Web applications which span from client to server andinteroperate with existing computing resources. Until recently, HTML hasbeen the dominant technology used in development of Web-based solutions.However, HTML has proven to be inadequate in the following areas:

Poor performance;

Restricted user interface capabilities;

Can only produce static Web pages;

Lack of interoperability with existing applications and data; and

Inability to scale.

Sun Microsystem's ® Java language solves many of the client-sideproblems by:

Improving performance on the client side;

Enabling the creation of dynamic, real-time Web applications; and

Providing the ability to create a wide variety of user interfacecomponents.

With Java, developers can create robust User Interface (UI) components.Custom “widgets” (e.g., real-time stock tickers, animated icons, etc.)can be created, and client-side performance is improved. Unlike HTML,Java supports the notion of client-side validation, offloadingappropriate processing onto the client for improved performance.Dynamic, real-time Web pages can be created. Using the above-mentionedcustom UI components, dynamic Web pages can also be created.

Sun's Java language has emerged as an industry-recognized language for“programming the Internet.” Sun defines Java as: “a simple,object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure,architecture-neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded,dynamic, buzzword-compliant, general-purpose programming language. Javasupports programming for the Internet in the form ofplatform-independent Java applets.” Java applets are small, specializedapplications that comply with Sun's Java Application ProgrammingInterface (API) allowing developers to add “interactive content” to Webdocuments (e.g., simple animations, page adornments, basic games, etc.).Applets execute within a Java-compatible browser (e.g., NetscapeNavigator ®) by copying code from the server to client. From a languagestandpoint, Java's core feature set is based on C++. Sun's Javaliterature states that Java is basically, “C++ with extensions fromObjective C for more dynamic method resolution.”

Another technology that provides similar function to JAVA is provided byMicrosoft and ActiveX Technologies, to give developers and Web designerswherewithal to build dynamic content for the Internet and personalcomputers. ActiveX includes tools for developing animation, 3-D virtualreality, video and other multimedia content. The tools use Internetstandards, work on multiple platforms, and are being supported by over100 companies. The group's building blocks are called ActiveX Controls,small, fast components that enable developers to embed parts of softwarein hypertext markup language (HTML) pages. ActiveX Controls work with avariety of programming languages including Microsoft Visual C++, BorlandDelphi ®, Microsoft ® Visual Basic programming system and, in thefuture, Microsoft's development tool for Java, code named “Jakarta.”ActiveX Technologies also includes ActiveX Server Framework, allowingdevelopers to create server applications. One of ordinary skill in theart readily recognizes that ActiveX could be substituted for JAVAwithout undue experimentation to practice the invention.

Overview

Architecture Basics

Architecture Overview

What is architecture?

Architecture—whether the word is applied to work with a city skyline oran information system—is both about designing something and aboutmaking, building, or constructing something. An architect is literally a“master builder”—from the Greek words archi (primary or master) andtekton (builder or carpenter). In good Greek fashion, however, it wouldbe unthinkable for something to be built without a sound theoreticalbasis. So architecture involves theory, but there is nothing merelytheoretical about it. Conversely, architecture is also eminentlypractical, but there is nothing merely practical about it. Ideas aboutform and structure lie behind architecture. Ultimately one must let goof a mindset that tries to separate the designing from the making; theyexist together as a whole, and to extract one without the other is tokill the whole.

Architecture also is an engineering discipline. It creates and alsodepends on a structured manner to analyze and design whatever is to bebuilt. Like all living disciplines, architecture continues to grow andevolve. Engineering discoveries move the field forward. Certain designand engineering principles clearly show themselves to be successful inpractice, and these then become repeatable components of additionalwork. The ability to continue to master each component, as well as theinterrelations among components, is a distinguishing characteristic ofarchitecture.

So architecture is about designing and building something from a set ofbasic components, and also about the interrelations among thecomponents. And it is a discipline whereby all these things cometogether—materials, space, people—to bring something into being that wasnot there before.

Although building architects have not always been pleased about it,architectural concepts have influenced other kinds of “building”projects for some time. Over the past twenty years, developers ofinformation systems, for example, have used concepts from the field ofarchitecture not only to describe their work but to execute it, as well.

The use of architectural thinking implies that the work is aboutcreating certain kinds of structures that can be engineered or at leastinfluenced, and that the work can be organized and performed in astructured, systematic manner. Moreover, use of architectural conceptsimplies that there is something repeatable about the work: architectscan create a structure, then use components of that structure again inthe future when they come across a similar situation.

An architectural paradigm should not be lightly used. It makes demands.To use architectural concepts implies that one is ready to do so—thatis, that the field is sufficiently mature in its work to see patternsand to organize future work according to those patterns.

Finally, architecture must be understood as a process 200, not just athing. This process can be described at a very high level using FIG. 2.

Step 1: Analyze 202. The architect must begin by listening to andresearching the needs of the client. What is the function of thebuilding?What is its environment? What are the limitations set by budgetand use?

Step 2: Design 204. This is a blueprint stage. The architect creates oneor several designs showing the layout of the structure, how differentspaces fit together, how everything looks from different views, whatmaterials are to be used, and so forth.

Step 3: Model & Test 206. Not every architectural project has this step,but in many cases, the architect will create a scale model/prototype ofthe finished product, allowing the client a clearer sense of what theultimate solution will look like. A model is a kind of test stage,allowing everyone to test the design in a near-real-life setting.

Step 4: Build 208. This is the actual construction of the building, ingeneral accord with the blueprints and prototype.

Step 5: Operate and Evolve 210. The building is to be lived in and used,of course, and so an important step is to ensure that the finishedproduct is tended to and operated effectively. Architects themselves maynot be involved in the operation of their building, but they certainlywould be involved in future expansions or evolutions of the building.Stewart Brand's recent text, How Buildings Learn, argues that effectivearchitecture takes into account the fact that buildings “learn”: aspeople live and work in them over time, those people will seek to alterthe building in subtle, or not so subtle, ways.

Also, when architects design a building, they have in their heads aprimary conceptual framework for all the components that go into thatbuilding: the plumbing, the electric, the sewers, stairs/elevators,framing structure, and so forth. The tacit step for an architect is,“Based on my knowledge of the generic components that go into abuilding, how will these components fit together in this particularbuilding? Which of these components will require special attentionbecause of the functional demands of the building?”

Oxford English Dictionary Definition

The conceptual structure and overall logical organization of a computeror computer-based system from the point of view of its use or design; aparticular realization of this.

The manner or structure in which hardware or software is constructeddefines how a system or program is structured, how various componentsand parts interact, as well as what protocols and interfaces are usedfor communication and cooperation between modules and components whichmake up the system. Seven general characteristics of successfularchitectures are set forth:

Delimitation of the problem to be addressed;

Decomposition of the solution to components with clearly assignedresponsibilities;

Definition of interfaces, formats, and protocols to be used between thecomponents. These should be sufficiently clear and robust in order topermit asynchronous development and ongoing re-implementation of thecomponents;

Adequate documentation to permit compliance by implementers;

An auditing mechanism that exercises the specified interfaces to verifythat specified inputs to components yield specified results;

An extendibility mechanism to enable response to changing requirementsand technologies;

Policies, practices, and organizational structures that facilitateadoption of the architecture.

Several possible types of architectures contemplated by the presentinvention are discussed below.

Development Architecture Framework (DAF) 300 provides access to one'sthought leadership and architecture frameworks for Execution,Development and Operations environments 302,304,306. For a more detaileddiscussion on these architectures, please see Standard ArchitectureSummaries (below). FIG. 3 shows the dependencies of the threearchitecture frameworks and is described in more detail in the DeliveryVehicle Overview (below).

The following lists are starting points for considering the range ofcomponents and activities that must be covered by each architecturalview of the system. They are not a definitions of the environments.

Standard Architecture Summaries

Execution Architecture 302

The execution architecture is a unified collection of run-timetechnology services, control structures, and supporting infrastructureupon which application software runs.

It includes components such as:

Application messaging

Batch processing architecture

Middleware

Reporting

Error handling

On-line architecture

Security

Code/decode

Data access methods

Integrated help

File transfer capabilities

Directory services

Load balancing

Workflow services

State management

“Special” requirements (e.g., workflow, telephony, groupware)

Development Architecture 304

The development architecture is a unified collection of technologyservices, tools, techniques, and standards for constructing andmaintaining application software.

It includes components such as:

Design/documentation tools

Information repository

Project Management tools

Program Shells

GUI Window painter

Prototyping tools

Programmer APIs

Testing tools

Source code control/build process

Performance test tools

Productivity tools

Design tools

Compiler/debugger

Editor

Operations Architecture 306

A unified collection of technology services, tools, standards andcontrols required to keep a business application production ordevelopment environment operating at the designed service level. Itdiffers from an execution architecture in that its primary users aresystem administrators and production support personnel.

It includes components such as:

Job scheduler

Software distribution

Error monitor

Data backup and restore

Help desk

Security administration

High-Availability

Hardware management

Performance monitors

Startup/shutdown procedures

Report management tool

Disaster Recovery

Network Monitoring Tools

Cross Platform Management Tools

Considerations—All Environments

Questions to ensure that you are asking the right questions about thetechnology architecture include:

For all technology components, have the following characteristics beenaddressed:

Performance according to specifications?

Reliability of operation?

Ease of operation?

Maintenance requirements?

Ability to interface with other components, particularly those fromother vendors?

Delivery schedule to provide adequate pre-conversion testing?

Backup procedures?

Vendor reliability and financial stability?

Future proofing against business change?

Have the versions of system software been live at another site for atleast six to twelve months?

This time frame varies by product. Have reference sites been verified?

What is a framework?

It is a major challenge to design the complex infrastructure that isneeded to satisfy the requirements of today's distributed,mission-critical applications. As such, it is helpful to have aninventory of the components that may be required for the design, build,installation and operation of systems. It is also helpful to have anunderstanding of how the components fit together conceptually.

A Framework should be thought of as a conceptual structure used to framethe work about to be done. It should be used as a thought trigger or asa completeness check. A framework cannot be built directly but insteadshould use it as a starting point for understanding and designing.

Frameworks are used to help practitioners understand what components maybe required and how the components fit together. Based on the inventoryof components and the description of their relationships, practitionerswill select the necessary components for their design. An architectextracts components from one or more Frameworks to meet a specific setof user or application requirements. Once an architecture has beenimplemented it is often referred to as an architecture or aninfrastructure.

The scope of what a framework addresses can vary widely. One framework,for instance, may outline the components for a technical infrastructurein its entirety whereas another framework may focus explicitly on thenetwork. A thorough understanding of a framework's scope is crucial toits use during the design phase of a project.

It is also important to understand whether the framework is vendorspecific in nature (proprietary) or whether it is available for use by alarge number of vendors (open).

The Importance of Architecture

Experience has demonstrated the benefits of an architectural approach toinformation systems development: better productivity and lessreinvention of the wheel. An architecture provides a completeness check,ensuring that all relevant components of a possible solution have beenconsidered. It ensures consistent, reliable, high-quality applications.It gives everyone—the developers and their clients—a common frameworkand common language with which to talk about the work.

Perhaps most important, it allows professional developers to leveragesuccessful solutions when performing additional work. Architectureinvolves repeatable concepts, and so it reduces the time and cost bywhich a solution is delivered.

Some of the Specific Technical Benefits of a Good Architecture are

Simplified Application Development

Good architecture provides common set of application services. Itremoves application programmers from the complexities of the underlyingtechnology and development tools, allowing less experienced developersto be more productive.

Quality

Usually more experienced developers implement the often complextechnical components in an architecture. These components are thenreused, avoiding duplicated complex logic in the applications.Iterations during design, implementation and testing often result inrefinement and improvement of the architecture components. All users ofthese components benefit from such improvements, reducing the risk offailure and ensuring better overall quality in the final application.

Integration

An architecture often ties together disparate software, platforms andprotocols into one comprehensive framework.

Extensibility

The architecture is established by experienced personnel who can predictwith some confidence whether a given architecture will fulfill currentand future requirements. Code extensions are easily integrated. Awell-balanced architecture consists of the “right” components, where thecomponents are tied together by simple interrelationships, since complexrelationships increase the architecture's complexity faster thanmodularization can reduce it.

Location Transparency

Generally, the application of good architecture divorces applicationfrom the details of resource location. This is however not always trueor required. For performance reasons designers and developers stilloften need to be aware of process and data locations.

Horizontal Scaling

Architecture assists in optimal utilization of existing infrastructureresulting in increased application performance and stability

Isolation

An architecture can be used to isolate the applications from particularproducts. This ensures that products can more easily be replaced later.This characteristic can be important if there is risk associated with aproduct's or product vendor's future, or the rate of change in aparticular technology area is particularly high. An evident example isprovided by looking back at changes in user interface standards over thelast 10 years. Applications that did not separate user interface logicfrom business logic, had to be completely rewritten to take advantage ofnew user interfaces, such as MS Windows and more recently Web browsers.

Portability

The use of architecture increases portability and reusability within andacross different platforms or protocols.

The use of architecture frameworks during analysis and design can reducethe risks of an IT solution. It should improve development productivitythrough reuse, as well as the IT solution's reliability andmaintainability.

One key challenge for today's IT managers is the need for change.Architectures provide a basic framework for major change initiatives.Many businesses are performed by strategic applications that will mostlikely require frequent and rapid development to handle changes intechnology capability and business requirements. A properly defined andintelligently developed architecture delivers an infrastructure on whicha business can build and enhance applications that support their currentand future business needs. This is how a business can manage change.

A key benefit of an architecture is that it divides and conquerscomplexity. Simple applications benefit less from architecture thancomplex ones do; fewer decisions are needed in these cases, and fewerpeople need to know about them. During maintenance, a poorly architectedsmall application is tolerable because it is still relatively easy tolocate a fault and to anticipate the side effects of correcting it.

Conversely, complex applications are more difficult to understand and tomodify. Complexity is reduced by subdividing the application in layersand components, each layer having a specific functionality. The layersare strongly cohesive and de-coupled: A given layer does not need toknow the internals of any other layer.

Study of Large Complex Systems (LCS) reinforces the importance of astable architectures in large systems. By way of example:

Successful delivery of an LCS solution depends on the early definitionand use of common data applications and technology architecture.

There is a high failure rate when the architecture is not defined,stabilized, and delivered early in an LCS effort.

All significant LCS efforts involved the use of common or sharedarchitectures. A successful effort, however, depended on earlydefinition and delivery of a stable common architecture.

Significant changes to the data, application, or technologyarchitectures had severe negative effects on the timeliness of projectdeliverables, and on the reliability of what was delivered.

Although it is not realistic for every project to have nine months todefine required architectures, it does suggest that early focus ondefinition and design of the architectural components is essential.

The risk of failure is greatly increased if essential architectures arebeing defined or changed significantly in parallel with applicationdevelopment.

Benefits of an Architecture

The benefits derived from a technology architecture can allow one to bein the forefront of the development of many leading edge businesssolutions. The investment in a reliable and flexible architecture canresult in one or more of the following:

Preservation of investments in applications and technology by isolatingeach from changes in the other (e.g. upgrades in hardware or third-partysoftware do not impact applications).

Leveraging scarce technical skills (e.g. the need for people withdetailed skills in a specific communications protocol or aspects ofSQL).

Enhancements in productivity, flexibility and maintainability becausecommon and often complex and error-prone components (e.g. error handlingor cross-platform communications) are created within the architecture,and then reused by all applications.

Increases in the predictability of application performance because therun-time behavior of common components is familiar and consistent.

Serves as a construction blueprint and discussion agenda and ensuresconsistency across systems. This can have a big impact on theoperability and maintenance of the delivered applications.

What is an architect?

Architects must have deep understanding of a project, business and/ortechnical environment. Architects are involved across businessintegration projects, managing their complexities and intricacies.

It is easy to go overboard when designing and implementing a technologyarchitecture. Ideally the architecture should be a thin, well-definedlayer that ensures development productivity, maintenance flexibility,performance and stability.

A key issue is maintainability and operability. Keep in mind that othersmay have to understand the rationale behind the architecture design inorder to correctly maintain it.

Architecture logic can quickly become very abstract and hard to maintainby others than those who built it. A carefully designed architecturescan quickly be destroyed by maintenance personnel that do not understandhow it was designed and developed.

The architecture should be made as light-weight as possible onlyaddressing the requirements that drive it. Avoid “nice to have”flexibility and additional levels of abstractions that areintellectually interesting but not strictly required.

Delivery Vehicle Overview

A Delivery Vehicle is an integrated collection of technology servicesthat supports an application style, implemented on a distinctarchitecture generation.

Application Style

An application style defines a unique class of processing type, which isused by applications, and thus end-users. Current Delivery VehicleReference set of Application Styles include batch, on-line transactionprocessing, collaboration, data warehouse, knowledge management andintegration.

The Application Style is the primary dimension of a Delivery Vehicle,and most people use the terms Application Style and Delivery Vehicle tomean the same thing.

A key goal with a delivery vehicle is that it can be reused across manyapplications. It is still part of the Technology Architecture, notinvolving application specific logic. An Application Architecture on theother hand, will be specific for a particular application.

Architecture Generation

An architecture generation is a broad classification scheme for placingtechnology components within a technology era. Delivery Vehicles arephysically implemented on a distinct architecture generation.

Note: Defining a clear line between what falls under the client/serverand a Netcentric technology generation is difficult; typically differentpeople tend to have different opinions. Generally, the present inventionis an advance in client/server generation. In the context of theDelivery Vehicles, the technology generation discussion is intended tobe a logical discussion that aims to highlight the new businesscapabilities enabled by new technologies. So for example, there could bea PowerBuilder application executing from a Web Browser using a plug-in.

Delivery Vehicle Matrix

FIG. 4 illustrates a delivery vehicle matrix 400. One way of looking ata Delivery Vehicle is therefore as an intersection of a technologygeneration 402 and application style 404. This is the presentationmethod currently adopted for navigation in DAF.

Delivery Vehicle Cube

The Delivery Vehicle Cube 500, illustrated in FIG. 5, represents the“full” picture of what a Delivery Vehicle is. In addition to theApplication Styles and the Technology generations it introduces adistinction between Execution, Development and Operations Environments502,504,506.

The cube has the following dimensions, or cube “faces:

1. On the bottom left face of the cube are the core technologycomponents and services 508 that are common across all deliveryvehicles.

These core services will be implemented using one, or more likelyseveral, of the Technology Generations; currently Host, Client/Server orNetcentric. Most major enterprises have legacy systems that include bothhost based and distributed client/server applications. The presentinvention extends the mix of system technologies.

2. On the top left of the cube are the technology components 510 thatare required to support a distinct delivery vehicle.

These components extend the technology architecture with services thatare specific for each distinct delivery vehicle. Some of the componentsmay extend some of the core services, while others are completely newtypes of components.

3. On the right face of the cube are the three environments eachdelivery vehicle will affect: execution, development and operations502,504,506.

Both the core services and the delivery vehicle extensions requiresupport in all three environments. The cube illustrates that differentdelivery vehicles may require different extensions to a core developmentor operations environment, not just the execution architecture. Amission-critical high-volume transaction delivery vehicle may requirespecial performance tuning tools in the development architecture, aswell as real-time monitoring tools in the operations architecture.

Also different technology generations may require special services inall three environments. When working in a multi-platform environment,there may be duplicated services across platforms. This usuallycomplicates development, operations and execution architectures and mayrequire special focus on providing an integration architecture.

Typically the focus on engagements is on the execution environment. Themain dependency between these three environments is that the executionarchitecture to a large degree drives the requirements for thedevelopment and operations architectures. For example if aheterogeneous, distributed execution architecture is selected, both thedevelopment and operations environments must reflect this.

Delivery Framework

Promotes focus toward business solutions and away from technologyissues.

Assists linkage of architecture planning deliverables to delivering.

Create an enterprise-wide view of the business capabilities enabled bytechnologies.

Provide new architecture frameworks needed today to meet specific needs.

Provide guidance to define what architecture best meets those needs.

Provide development architecture frameworks and best practices to buildthese architectures.

During a high-level architecture design, one can identify architectureservices to be addressed, by providing a logical level discussion toassess types of base services and products needed for a specificsituation.

When Delivery Vehicles are implemented, they reduce time to implementbusiness solutions by providing “Starter Kits” architectures.

When Delivery Vehicles are implemented, they leverages technology acrossthe business by:

reducing operations and maintenance costs by limiting the number ofdifferent technologies and skills required to support thesetechnologies.

reducing technology costs for execution & development.

Note: The Delivery Vehicle Framework presents a way to organizetechnology architecture information. When presenting this type ofcontent to clients, one will need to tailor the information one presentsbased on the client's background and the terminology they are familiarwith.

Technology Generation Selection

Introduction

This section should assist an architect in understanding thecharacteristics of, and the implications from selecting, a specifictechnology generation. The strengths and weaknesses of each technologygeneration should be understood when planning and designing a system.When identifying the core technologies to be used in an architecture, aview of the client's existing IT architecture 600, guiding principles602 and business imperatives 604 should be taken into consideration, asdepicted in FIG. 6.

It is important to realize that a distinct, static division does notexist between the different technology generations. It is possible thatan architecture will consist of components from more than onegeneration.

The goal should be to understand the pros and cons of the differenttechnology options available for each component and to select the mostappropriate one based on the client's requirements.

It is becoming more important to leverage existing systems and integratethem with new applications. A typical scenario can involve mainframelegacy systems acting as servers in a client server architecture,application servers being accessed from both traditional GUI clientsbuilt in Powerbuilder and Visual Basic and from Web-based front endsaccessing the application servers via a Web-server.

General Considerations

From a technology point of view a new custom-made application shouldgenerally use the most recent Architecture Generation to assure that theapplication will live longer by better being able to adapt to futurechanges.

This implies that all new applications should ideally be based on aNetcentric Architecture, rather than on a traditional client/server or ahost-based architecture.

However choosing a generation is not just a technical decision. Oftenkey technology architecture decisions are made as a result of factorswhich are completely non-technical in nature, such as financial factors,internal and client politics, and implementation/operationalconsiderations.

When deciding whether to employ a Netcentric solution, i.e.incorporating Web-based user interfaces and Internet application styles,one must keep in mind that these technologies are not a panacea andshould be used only when there is solid business reason. They requirenew investments in skills, tools, development and operations processes.Due to the relative immaturity of tools and products, they alsorepresent additional risks both in technical terms, such as performanceand reliability, and in strategic terms, such as vendor and productquality and stability.

Regardless, today each project should always consider the prospect ofutilizing Netcentric technologies. It is important to evaluate whetherthe application can benefit from a Netcentric style implementationimmediately or in the future.

Even if a traditional client/server approach (e.g. using Visual Basic orPowerBuilder) is decided upon, the use of Netcentric concepts to producesignificant reductions in software packaging and distribution costsshould be considered. Such concepts include three- or multi-tierarchitectures with more business logic residing on server, flexiblesecurity architecture, and user interface concepts that can be ported toa Web Browser at a later stage.

A Netcentric architecture will usually still support development ofclient/server applications. The opposite is not often true sincetraditional client/server systems usually keep a substantial portion ofthe business logic on a fat client, while Netcentric architectures stillfavor keeping most business logic at the server side. Also Netcentricarchitectures tend to be more loosely coupled than (the still dominanttwo-tier) client/server systems.

The following sections identify the main characteristics associated witha Netcentric, Client Server or Host based technology generation. Thislist should in no way be considered complete and exhaustive but isincluded as a starting point from which the identification process maybegin.

Network Centric Architecture Generation

If most of the statements in FIG. 7 are true, one should consider anapplication based upon the Netcentric technology generation.

The following details the importance of each of the statements in FIG. 7and should assist in identifying the appropriate answer for specificclient engagement.

Existing Architecture and Infrastructure 700

E1. Other Netcentric applications been developed and placed inproduction.

The user community is often less resistant to accept the use of newtechnology to address changing business drivers if they are notcompletely unfamiliar with the characteristics of the technology. If anapplication based on a Netcentric architecture has already beensuccessfully piloted or deployed, acceptance of additional systems willbe eased.

E2. The client has significant technology skills within its ITdepartment.

This is especially important if the client plans on developing oroperating the application themselves. A significant investment intraining and changes to internal organizations maybe necessary forsuccessful deployment of this type of system. The client must have aculture that supports change. Some organizations are very conservativeand strong, making it difficult to deliver a successful project usingnew technology.

E3. The client has multiple hardware/operating system configurations fortheir client machines.

In traditional client/server environments, distributing an applicationinternally or externally for an enterprise requires that the applicationbe ported, recompiled and tested for all specific workstation operatingsystems. Use of a Universal Client or web-browser may eliminate many ofthese problems by providing a consistent and familiar user interface onmany different operating systems and hardware platforms.

E4. The application will run on a device other than a PC.

The momentum of the Internet is putting a lot of pressure on vendors ofvarious devices to be web-enabled. Having the Internet infrastructure inplace makes it more feasible for vendors to create new physical devicesfrom which electronic information can be accessed. For example, Webtelevisions are gaining momentum. Now users can access the Internet froma television set. Network Computers, thin-client devices that downloadand run applications from a centrally maintained server are generating alot of interest. Also, users want to have access to the same informationfrom multiple physical devices. For example, a user might want to haveaccess to his/her e-mail from a cellular phone, from a Web TV or theirportable PC.

E5. The current legacy systems can scale to serve a potentially largenew audience.

Expanding the user community of a legacy host or client/server system byincluding an audience which is external to the company can result indramatic increases in system usage. The additional demand and increasedusage placed on existing legacy systems is often difficult to estimateor predict. Analysis must be conducted to ensure existing legacy systemsand infrastructure can absorb this increase.

Business Imperatives 702

B1. The client needs to reach a new external audience with thisapplication.

This is probably the main reason for selecting a Netcentricarchitecture. Through appropriate use of a Netcentric architecture it isoften possible to gain exposure to new customers and markets. The clientcan often achieve significant competitive advantage by providing newservices and products to its customers. Also this new channel makes ittechnically possible to develop a new generation of “market-of-one”products, where each customer can repeatedly and easily customize aproduct according to own preferences.

B2. The client needs to reach a large or diverse internal audience withthis application.

Configuration management of traditional client/server applications,which tend to be physically distributed across both the client andserver, is a major issue for many corporations. The softwaredistribution of such applications which are packaged as one large or acombination of a few large executables makes minor updates difficult foreven a small scale user population. Every time an update is made, aprocess must be initiated to distribute new code to all client machines.The browser-centric application style offers an alternative to thistraditional problem of distributing functionality to both internal andexternal users.

IT Guiding Principles 704

G1. The client is an early adopter of new technology.

Implementation of a Netcentric architecture can help the client realizea number of business benefits. However, the introduction of newtechnology into an organization does have inherent risks and can resultin a significant amount of change. The client should have a culturewhich can embrace these necessary changes.

G2. Applications should be developed to handle non-dedicated oroccasional users.

Non-expert users need a simple to use and familiar interface in order tobe able to use the application. As people grow accustomed toWeb-browsers, this will be their preferred user-interface. Theconsistent interface provided by the Web-browsers will help reduce thelearning curve necessary for becoming familiar with new applications.

G3. Where appropriate, applications should be developed with multi-mediacapabilities for the presentation of data (text, sound, video, etc.).

The ability to digitize, organize, and deliver textual, graphical andother information (e.g., video, audio, etc.) in addition to traditionaldata to a broader audience, enables new methods for people andenterprises to work together. Netcentric technologies (e.g., HTMLdocuments, plug-ins, Java, etc.) and standardization of mediainformation formats enable support for these types of complex documentsand applications. Network bandwidth remains a performance issue. Howeveradvances in network technologies and compression techniques continue tomake richer media-enabled documents and applications more feasible onthe Web.

G4. The Execution, Operation and Development architectures will bedesigned to support frequent releases of enhancements/modifications toproduction applications.

It is imperative that companies in the current market place be able toquickly modify their business processes in order to address changes inthe industry. Netcentric architecture simplifies frequent softwarereleases for both internal and external users of the systems.

Client/server Network Generation

If, based upon the client's requirements, most of the statements of FIG.8 are true, one should consider an application based upon the ClientServer technology generation.

The following section details the importance of each of the statementsfound in FIG. 8 and should assist in identifying the appropriate answerfor a specific client engagement.

Existing Architecture and Infrastructure 800

E1. Other Client Server applications been developed and placed inproduction and the client IT organization contains personnel familiarwith client server architecture concepts.

As with any new technology, there is a learning curve related toattaining client server development skills. The development process isoften much more efficient when familiar tools and environments are used.The introduction of new technology can also create instability in theoperations environment. Client/server systems still represent a newtechnology to many IT departments.

Business Imperatives 802

B1. The application will be used only by an internal user community.

Software distribution is a concern for traditional client servercomputing environments due to the fact that executable and data filesneed to reside on the client hard drive. Distribution to a usercommunity outside of the client's organization is even more difficult toimplement and manage and will probably be limited to a few key businesspartners.

B2. The application requires an advanced, dynamic, and integrated userinterface for expert users.

State of the art 4GL and 3GL development languages will support advanceduser interfaces which require a significant degree of context managementbetween fields and windows. Web-based user interfaces do not supportsuch interfaces well yet.

B3. Session performance is critical to the application or sub-secondresponse times are required for successful use.

Client server applications can provide response times necessary tosupport transaction intensive mission critical systems. Applicationlogic and business data can be distributed between the client and serverfor optimal efficiency. Web-based interfaces still have an inherentoverhead due to the connectionless communication and constantdownloading of data, formatting information and applet code.

B4. The application needs to support off-line mobile users.

Mobile computing is becoming more prevalent in the work place,therefore, connectivity to a server can not be assumed for all userclasses. A client server architecture allows for the distribution ofapplication logic and/or data between the server and client. Replicationof data and logic is usually necessary for applications that are run onportable computers.

IT Guiding Principles 804

G1. The client maintains their applications internally and the ITdepartment has the necessary resources, organizations and processes tomaintain a Client Server application.

Introduction of a Client Server application to a company's productionenvironment can require a great deal of change to the Execution,Operations and Development architectures required to develop, run andsupport the production systems. Before a Client Server application isdeveloped, it is important that the client identify how a system of thistype will fit within the company's strategic technology plan.

Host Architecture Generation

If the clients business and technical requirements meet the followingsystem characteristics, consideration should be given to an applicationbased upon the Host technology generation.

The following section details the importance of each of the statementsfound in FIG. 9 and should assist in identifying the appropriate answerfor a specific client engagement.

Existing Architecture and Infrastructure 900

E1. The client currently maintains and operates host based applicationsand the IT organization contains personnel familiar with the developmentand operation of these types of applications.

Few organizations introduce solely host based production systems.Usually the infrastructure for this type of systems already exists. Newdevelopment is uncommon, typically existing legacy systems need to beextended.

Host systems usually have a mature and stable operations environment.Note that mainframe expertise is currently expensive and in high demand

Business Imperatives 902

B1. The application will only be used by a dedicated, expert usercommunity where a GUI is not needed.

A dedicated work force with low turnaround, skilled in the use ofcharacter based 3270 applications, eliminates the need for a GUIinterface.

B2. The application requires a high volume of repetitive transactions.

The high degree of processing power provided by mainframes allows forthe development of applications with very high performance requirements.

B3. The application has a requirement for significant batch processing.

Mainframes are probably still the most powerful platforms for largescale batch processing. Mature tools exist for scheduling,recovery/restart, sorting, merging, and moving large sets of data.

B4. End users can maintain a physical connection to the host at alltimes.

Physical connection to the host is required for use of the applications.Methods of mobile computing with distribution of data or business logicis not possible.

B5. The application will need to support a large number of users(>1000).

The processing power of today's mainframe lends itself well to thedevelopment of large scale, mission critical applications with a largeuser base.

IP Guiding Principles 904

G1. The Client has the resources, organizations and processes necessaryfor the development and operation of a Host based application.

Before a Host based application is developed, it is important that theclient identify how a system of this type will fit within the company'sstrategic technology plan.

G2. Reliance upon a single vendor (IBM) for technology solutions isacceptable.

Selection of a host based architecture inherently locks the client intodependence upon one vendor for its technology solutions. While IBM ® isa reputable, stable company it is important to ensure that the client'slong term business strategy will be supported by IBM's technology visionand direction.

G3. Centralized application and data is an acceptable strategy.

A pure host based architecture eliminates the possibility ofdistributing data or business logic to the client. This removes some ofthe application performance benefits which can be seen by a distributionstrategy, however, centralized access to the business logic and businessdata can improve operational stability and lower costs.

A current trend is to transform mainframe based legacy systems intodata- and application servers in a multi-tiered client/server orNetcentric architecture.

Overview of the Frameworks

The following should be born in mind when considering what framework touse:

when the various frameworks in DAF can be useful

how the frameworks are related

Frameworks Related to Delivery Vehicles

Most of the frameworks in DAF address various aspects of DeliveryVehicle architectures.

DAF provides access to a thought process regarding leadership andarchitecture frameworks for Execution, Development and Operationsenvironments. Very briefly, DAF covers:

The Core Execution Architecture frameworks for the differentarchitecture generations (Host, Client/Server and Netcentric). Mostusers will primarily use the Netcentric framework.

The Execution Architecture Extensions. This is a collection of commondelivery vehicles. These frameworks extend the core frameworks withservices specific for a particular delivery vehicle.

The Development Architecture Framework should help with theestablishment and operation of a high-quality development environment.

The Operations Architecture Framework should help with the establishmentand operation of a high-quality operations environment.

eCommerce Application Framework Framework Overview

The eCommerce market is rapidly emerging. This is evidenced by thegrowing numbers of new eCommerce transactional sites, the increasingnumber of ‘exchange of value’ transactions performed daily, theemergence of new entities and businesses focusing on the electronicmarketplace, the convergence and partnering of existing businesses onthe electronic marketplace, and the empowerment of the everyday user tosatisfy their needs within the evolving electronic marketplace.

One definition of eCommerce is: ‘A commercial exchange of value betweenan enterprise and an external entity—either an upstream supplier, apartner, or a down-stream customer—over a universal, ubiquitouselectronic medium.’

The eCommerce Application Framework 1000 in DAF is illustrated in FIG.10.

The eCommerce Application Framework (eCaf) identifies and describes theapplication capabilities useful or necessary to implementing eCommercebusiness solutions. It provides a framework to tie business process,application, and technology aspects of eCommerce together, and a basisfor mapping and assessing the capabilities of the eCommerce packagedsolutions. This framework should be used as a vehicle for communicating,and designing eCommerce business solutions.

The eCommerce Application Framework has been created to provide anunderstanding of the types of services and applications needed toimplement an eCommerce solution. FIG. 11 illustrates the relationshipbetween the eCommerce Application Framework 1000, the possible eCommerceSelling Models 1102, enabling technology 1104, and enabling eCommerceSoftware Packages 1106.

The eCaf defines a supporting middle layer between basic Internet orNetcentric enabled products (eCommerce Package Software) and thetechnical infrastructure (Enabling Technology) needed to developeCommerce-enabled web sites based on a business-specific selling model(eCommerce Selling Models). Note that eCaf just covers the middle layer.

Each solution or site may have a different selling approach,architecture, utilization of technology, or applications. The eCafincludes the concepts, applications, and services common across thedifferent solutions and has organized them into applicationcapabilities.

Technologically eCommerce business capability requires a logicalgrouping of services enabling a specific eCommerce functionality. Thefunctionality may be a single technical service within the underlyingarchitecture or an entire application. The capabilities have beenderived from surveying multiple eCommerce software packages andeCommerce implementations. As eCommerce evolves, the categories andcapabilities are apt to change.

eCommerce Application Framework in DAF

In DAF the capabilities are presented as framework components andsubcomponents. The eCommerce capabilities illustrate the highest levelcategories of eCommerce capabilities: External Agents, ElectronicMerchandising, Relationship Management, Maintenance & Administration,Order Processing, Customer Services, Security, Decision Support,Integration.

The capabilities within a given category may cover the full range ofpotential selling models. Some components may be specific only to abusiness-to-business buyer-centric implementation. Additional componentsmay emerge as this technology matures.

It should be borne in mind that the eCaf documentation in DAF focuses onthe eCaf capabilities. The enabling technology is discussed elsewhere inDAF (see below). The selling models and eCommerce Package Software arediscussed only briefly.

eCommerce Enabling Technology

The enabling technology for an eCommerce implementation is the sameunderlying technology used to enable most Netcentric (and in some casesclient server) implementations. In general, most implementations willutilize the Netcentric technologies. An understanding of the Netcentricframework will act as a building block for understanding the technologyaspects of an eCommerce solution. Information on the Netcentricframework is found in the patent application entitled A SYSTEM, METHODAND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR BASE SERVICES PATTERNS IN A NETCENTRICENVIRONMENT which is referenced above and incorporated by reference inits entirety.

eCommerce Selling Models

A wide variety of eCommerce solutions fall under the broad umbrella termof “eCommerce.” The vague definition of eCommerce lends itself to arange of implementations and possibilities. A survey of the sites withinthe current electronic marketplace reveals the majority of thetransactional ‘exchange of value’ solutions concentrate on selling‘products.’ Products can be further divided into physical andelectronic.

Physical—Any tangible product the buyer can touch or feel (for example,cars, refrigerators, food, or furniture). This would include retail anddurable goods.

Electronic—Any product delivered over an electronic medium. This mayinclude content, information, audio and video, or software (for example,music, or financial products such as insurance or mutual funds).

Across the many ‘exchange of value’ sites, there are three prevalentselling models: seller-centric, buyer-centric, and auction.

Seller-Centric Selling Model

The seller-centric model is the most common. In its simplest form, acompany typically provides information about their products and givesthe customer the ability to place orders. More advanced implementationsuse electronic means for supporting the entire sales and support processincluding: marketing, product display, merchandizing, customer needsassessment, order processing, and many other activities. In mostseller-centric solutions, the infrastructure is created and maintainedby the merchant. The customer needs nothing more than a browser and/oraccess to the site.

Buyer-Centric Selling Model

In a buyer-centric solution, the main focus is on customer or buyertrying to fulfill a need for a product. In contrast to Seller-Centricsites which offer products, a buyer-centric site displays items thebuyer would like to purchase—in effect trying to lure sellers. Many ofthe same capabilities as seller-centric sites are needed such as ordermanagement and payment capabilities. In this case, the customer joins orcreates an infrastructure focused on fulfilling his needs. Theinfrastructure typically provides an environment between the tradingpartners which promotes browsing and comparing products, orderingproducts, fulfillment, payment, and any needed customer supportservices. A concentration should be placed on the ease of transactionsand information flow. For this reason, sellers may customize theirproduct line to the buyers' specific needs.

In most buyer-centric cases, the buyer or often a consortium of buyers,provides the bulk of the eCommerce infrastructure. Additionalintegration and setup may or may not be required for each of the tradingpartners who wishes to participate. Implementations requiring sellers tospecially configure or integrate their own systems in order toparticipate are usually only successful where the buyer has substantialmarket power in the relationship, as in GM® or Ford® buying parts fromtheir suppliers. In such cases, agreements must be made as to whatinformation is to be shared, how to model the information, the standardsfor messaging and communication, and what technologies will be used.Besides the technical hurdle of integrating multiple systems and thesomewhat immature state of the software products to date, convincingtrading partners to adopt an Internet commerce approach can also be verydifficult. If one is not a particularly big or powerful buyer, it can bedifficult to attract potential sellers to come to one's site and spendthe time necessary to learn about one's needs. This requires sellers toengage in a very different activity than they have traditionallyperformed and many are not eager to change their way of doing businessfor a relatively small customer.

This section of the market has been slower to emerge. As mentionedabove, trading partner maintenance is a key issue. Companies at the endof the hub must buy into the hub's practices and vision. Future visionand direction are also important. As changes are implemented, alltrading partners have to move together. Getting buy in from all partnershas the potential to slow down the adoption of new technologies andprocess innovations which over time can lead to a lack luster lowestcommon denominator approach.

Broker Selling Model

Broker or auction type solutions are also emerging, albeit more slowly.Broker implementations don't typically sell their own goods, but ratherprovide an eCommerce environment to facilitate bringing multiple buyersand sellers together. Both buyers and sellers can utilize the broker'ssite and infrastructure rather than developing and maintaining their owneCommerce capabilities. In this case, a broker has set up theinfrastructure needed to buy and sell goods. The infrastructure will bevery similar to a seller-centric solution with the addition ofcomponents needed to register goods to be sold (or in a buyer-centrictwist—register RFQ's ‘request for quote’), price negotiation andbidding, and reconciliation services.

A Trading Network (TN) is an excellent business example of a brokersite. Users of the TN can issue Request For Quote's (RFQ'S) on thetrading network. The request could be for raw materials, components, orfinished items. Suppliers are free to answer an RFQ providing they meetsome basic guidelines and requirements. The network provides a truewin-win relationship. Since the network can be global, suppliers thepurchaser may never have known about are free to participate.

Another example on the consumer side is a sales website. Such a siteoffers a variety of computer, electronic and fitness goods as well as ageneral merchandise auction. Customers can browse items in order to viewproduct information and their current bid prices. Interested buyers canplace a bid online and see how their bid price compares with others. Theauctions are time based and follow a detailed bidding process. Ascustomers are out bid, they are notified via email and have the optionto reply with a counter bid.

Packaged eCommerce Software

In relation to packaged eCommerce Software, the eCaf framework providesa basis for understanding and assessing the capabilities of theeCommerce packages.

If a package is used to implement part of the eCommerce solution, ananalysis of its underlying technology and business requirements withrespect to the Netcentric Framework and the selling models should beconducted. It is important to understand the underlying architecture andany inherent application limitations due to the package's choice oftechnology used to implement its architecture. In short, it is importantto understand what comes ‘out of the box.’ Be sure to understand each ofthe main components described by the Netcentric Framework (e.g. WebBrowser, Web Server), how the components communicate, and anylimitations of the package and architecture of the component.

A multitude of different packages are emerging usually with the namesounding something similar to ‘eCommerce Server.’ Each package may boastto be different in the problem it is addressing, the architecture, orthe underlying processes and technology. In addition, it may claim toprovide an ‘end-to-end solution’ for businesses wishing to transact onthe Internet. It is currently very difficult to differentiate betweenthe products. The eCAF provides a basis for understanding and assessingthe capabilities of existing eCommerce packages as well as thoseemerging.

The current eCommerce software packages can be classified in thefollowing categories:

eCommerce Toolset This category would includes any set of tools orcomponents with which an eCommerce application can be built. Examplesinclude the multitude of ‘CyberWallets’ or electronic cash components.

eCommerce Internet Applications This category includes software gearedtoward providing an application for specific eCommerce businessfunctions or processes. This product would be a template or is in itselfa specific eCommerce-enabled application. An example would includeproducts providing the ability for cataloging or help desk functions.This is often referred to as vertical solutions.

eCommerce Transactional Infrastructure This category includes softwarepackages providing the infrastructure to support multiple transactionaleCommerce applications. These types of solutions provide thetransactional infrastructure used for multiple sites.

A complex eCommerce solution potentially may utilize software from allthree of these categories in addition to any custom code needed tointegrate them.

External Agents 1002

FIG. 12 illustrates a flowchart for a method 1200 for automatedperformance of services on a network. When a request for a service isreceived over a network in operation 1202, information about a producton the network is searched in operation 1204 in order to perform theservice. Data including the price of the product is selected from theinformation on the network and the service is performed utilizing thedata in operations 1206 and 1208.

The service may include making suggestions based on a user's profile andhistory. The service requested may also include retrieval of data.Thirdly, the service requested may include a product comparison. As anoption, the data may further include detailed product attributes. Asanother option, the services of other agents may also be used to performthe service.

On the Internet, an agent 1300 (also called an intelligent agent) is aprogram that gathers information or performs some other service withoutthe immediate of a user. See FIGS. 10 and 13. Typically, an agent, usingparameters provided by the user, searches all or some part of theInternet, gathers the requested information, and presents it back to therequesting user. Intelligent external agent technology will continue togrow as the eCommerce market develops. As the market saturates withproducts and information, the need for techniques or agents to filterthis information will grow.

Business Drivers

Despite the vast amount of information and tools available on theInternet, it is still passive, requiring the user to browse throughtremendous amounts of information in order to obtain what they need. Theintroduction of advanced intelligent agent technology will potentiallytransform the Internet into an active network through which users candelegate tasks to computer programs to complete on their behalf An agentin accordance with an embodiment of the present invention has theability to transport itself from one place in the network to another,filtering through relevant information in order to perform its task. Thesoftware can be designed to make suggestions based on the user's profileand history, and change its behavior as it learns from experience andinteractions with other agents.

Intelligent Agents may have the following characteristics:

Mobility—the ability to move around an electronic network;

Autonomy—agents operate without the direct intervention of humans orothers, and have some kind of control over their actions and internalstate;

Adaptability—an agent maybe able to adjust itself to the habits, workingmethods and preferences of its user.

An exemplary agent is a Bargain Finder. The Bargain Finder agent is anintelligent agent used for comparative shopping for music CDs. A usercan request the agent to search based on a specific artist and album.The agent would search its known sources, gather the needed information,and return a comparison list with prices and specifications to therequester. If this concept is applied to the business world, thepotential value increases dramatically.

A business may utilize a similar concept but on a much grander scale,allowing the user to take advantage of the lowest available price.Providing there are ample suppliers, a business may create an agent tosearch for the best prices on construction materials or assemblycomponents. In this case, the agent could provide substantial savings inmaterial costs and personnel.

Inbound vs. Outbound Agents

From a site's perspective, there are inbound and outbound agents. Anoutbound agent would be an agent a site sends out to gather information.For example, a site selling digital goods may embed a specific digitalwatermark within its digital goods. It could then create an agent tosearch the Web for this digital watermark to determine if unauthorizeduses exist. Another example would be competitive analysis. A site maycreate an agent for polling competing sites for current prices andproduct list in order to price the site's own items competitively.

On the other hand, the site may deal with inbound agents. The emergenceof the comprehensive intelligent shopping assistant is a prime exampleof inbound agents. Agents may enter a site in an attempt to gatherinformation about products, availability and prices. For example, anInternet shopper may use a ‘shopping agent’ to submit a request for aparticular product. The shopping agent determines which sites maycontain relevant information, interacts with the site in order to gatherany needed information, and prepares a report for the user includingdetailed product information, product comparisons, and pricing lists.From the site selling goods, the agent may be viewed as in inboundcustomer.

In essence, an agent is both inbound and outbound, depending on theperspective of the site. If the site is the initiator of the agent, theagent is viewed as outbound. This same agent is viewed as inbound to thesites it interacts with to gather information.

Agent Technology

The technology behind agents is continually evolving. Agents generallyrequire more distributed processing and communication capabilities thanare currently offered by networking and computing standards such asTCP/IP and CORBA. These standards cannot accommodate the flexibility andvariety of interaction needed among agents, users, and other agents andsystems. As it is available now, middleware support to inter-processcommunication is quite primitive. TCP/IP fulfills the necessarytransport function; Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and socket librariesallow for the basic exchange of information and invocation of procedureson top of TCP/IP; and CORBA adds routing, names services and data typetranslation.

Flexible, tailorable interactions among agents, users, and other agentsand systems require a language and protocols for specifying orcustomizing the behavior of agents, regardless of their mobility. Somestatements of the language will allow flexible interactions with aspecific component of the agent-interface to services. These servicemediators will allow incoming agents to query for the nature of providedservices and conditions of their usage. Research is underway on suchlanguages, their semantics, their syntax and how they should beintegrated with agent systems.

Peer-to-peer computing allows work stations to concurrently send andhost multiple requests for services. Security, reliability and integrityissues need to be explored, especially because the market has highexpectations for these areas in client/server environments. Asynchronousdistributed computing is best handled with mobile agents. Rather thancoding a long-lasting, complex exchange of messages between a client andpossibly multiple servers, a mobile agent carries a compact program withall the required procedures for the interaction to be executed remotely.

Electronic Merchandising 1004

FIG. 14 illustrates a flowchart for a method 1400 for suggestingproducts over a network. Information of a product is displayed inoperation 1402. The product information includes product specifications,graphics, video images, digital samples, and/or inventory availability.In operation 1404, a search mechanism is provided for searching foritems similar to the product over a network. Items found during thesearch similar to the product are suggested in operation 1406. Selectionof the product and the items similar to the product is allowed forpurchase over the network in operation 1408.

As an option, a downloadable sample of the product may also be provided.As another option, user-created customization of the product may also beallowed. Also, compatibility and/or equivalence of the product may beevaluated with regards to the items similar to the product.

Optionally, a price of the product or the items similar to the productmay be generated based on a customer profile, a customer type, and/or ageographic location. Additionally, one or more of a special offering anda sale of the product or the items similar to the product may begenerated for a customer based on a customer profile, a customer type,and/or a geographic location.

Electronic merchandising introduces a new medium, the Internet, formerchants to sell their products. As shown in FIG. 15, the merchandisingcomponent consists of services needed to deliver product, pricing, andinventory information. These services may directly interact with thepersonalization services in order to deliver the information in acustomized format. A traditional example of this would bewindow-shopping, merchandise browsing, or any informative interactionwith the sales clerk.

There are tremendous benefits in adapting electronic (or dynamic)merchandising. Listed below are some of the benefits.

Amount of Information—The Internet is an excellent medium for sellinginformation-intensive products. In addition, the information can beupdated as needed. Customers will no longer worry about outdatedcatalogs and information.

Location—The Internet is geographically independent. A single site canpotentially serve the global community.

Availability—In addition, the merchant does not need to worry aboutstore hours. The site can be open for business 24×7.

Catalog Sales Model—The catalog sales model migrates naturally to theInternet. Shoppers can click on a product to see a larger picture andmore detailed information. An intelligent agent can suggest similaritems or others matching the tastes of the individual. Special offeringsand sales can be generated dynamically for each customer at the time ofthe visit. Catalogs could even be sent as email attachments once permonth, with links back to the main site for more information.

Convenience Services—Convenience services, such as grocery shopping andvirtual flower shops, are successful on the Internet. Busy consumers canchoose a greeting card from a huge online catalog, add a personalmessage, and have it sent on any day they specify.

Digital Goods—Digital goods, such as news, research, or data and graphicmedia like art and photography, are ideal for eCommerce. Buyers can takeimmediate delivery at the time of purchase, providing instantgratification and peace of mind. The seller does not receive paymentuntil the goods are received.

Large Selection of Goods—Online stores can have “virtual inventories”with a depth that would be impossible or prohibitively expensive toduplicate in the physical world.

Product Information (Catalog Services) 1500

There are many different styles and metaphors for electronicmerchandising. The basic underlying concept is providing productinformation to the end user. Product information may include productspecifications, graphics or video images, digital samples, or eveninventory availability. The approach for displaying this information maydiffer based on a Business-to-Consumer or Business-to-Businessimplementation. The most common implementation is to use the catalogapproach.

Information Storage (Data Model) 1502

The actual storage of the content is important. Product informationstored using static HTML aside, the most common method is in an objector relational database. Many vendors even provide data models for aproduct database. Vendor-provided data models often will need to bemodified in order to meet the specific product detail the systemrequires. It is important to understand the robustness of the data modelas well as the impacts to the system if changes need to be introduced.The system may involve storage and access to many non-discrete datatypes.

Information Delivery 1504

In more complex merchandising implementations, the content may consistof non-discrete data types such as audio and video. The deliverymechanism will need to be able to deliver the data to different accessdevices. Systems will encounter the need to manage non-discrete datatypes such as audio and video data and alternative content in case theaccess type cannot handle the data types.

Information Staging 1506

The ability to deliver new products and information may be critical tostay ahead or match the competition. The speed at which the informationcan be updated and migrated to production is critical. Be sure tounderstand the relationship between the content changes and the correctprocedures to migrate the changes to the production system. The abilityto maintain and grow the site may prove to be key factors in the site'ssuccess.

In most cases, a content staging process should be put in place. In thesimplest format, the procedures for modifying and adding content,testing, validation of content and subject matter, authorization andmigration to production should be documented.

Equivalent Item Identification and Product Comparison 1508

Buyer-Centric solutions may need to implement a method of evaluatingcompatibility and equivalence of products. If the buy site deals withmultiple trading partners, these functions may provide additional costsavings. Getting buy-in from all the trading partners to agree upon acommon model for product information is key for this to be successful.

Dynamic Pricing 1510

Dynamic pricing is the ability to display a different product pricebased on a customer profile, customer type, or any other logicalpossibility. Ties to personalization may be needed to handle pricingschemes based on relationships, terms, volumes, or other potentialcustomer profile items. It is a good practice to base the information ondatabase technologies that allow for quick retrieval and calculation(Note: This is definitely a performance-conscious area).

In addition, the pricing mechanism should be tied to any sort ofdiscounting or promotional incentives. For Business-to-Businessimplementations, contracts and agreements may be in place to drive thespecific pricing. Discounts may be applied on an incremental ortime-oriented basis. A common concept used are electronic coupons orother types of discounts. The customers may have earned or acquired acoupon or other form of discount earlier in the interaction with thesite. The coupon, usually stored on the user's machine, may be appliedto the purchased products.

Product Search 1512

In addition to catalog navigation, the ability to search for specificproducts is crucial. Assuming the site is a seller-centric site, thereare numerous methods of implementing a product search

Product Sampling 1514

Product Sampling—Products able to be sampled over the Internet will sellwell there. Music is one example. A shopper can listen to pieces ofsongs on a CD before deciding to order it.

Custom Product Configuration 1516

Some applications may require the ability for custom part creation orthe combination of individual components the user can combine to fulfilla specific, hard-to-manage, need. Part compatibility and pricing canbecome very complex and unmanageable.

Implementation Consideration

International Considerations

It is important to keep in mind international considerations whendesigning the merchandising component. The obvious considerations arerelated to converting currency and linguistics. In addition to these,there are bidden pitfalls of specific customs that may unknowingly beviolated. Sales of some goods may also be banned in certain countries.

Site Design Considerations

As with designing any site, the layout, design, and navigation aspectsare extremely important. The home page or entrance to the site iscrucial. There is often a debate as to what level of clutter andorganization is desirable. It is a good practice to research a potentialuser's current standard practices for site design and layout.

Relationship Management 1006

FIG. 16 illustrates a flowchart for a method 1600 for interacting with auser over a network for personalizing a website. A user is identifiedand information about the user is collected in operations 1602 and 1604.A profile of the user is built based on the collected information and aplurality of different contents are managed in operations 1606 and 1608.The profile and the contents are analyzed in order to match attributesof the profile of the user and attributes of the contents in operation1610. The contents which have attributes that match the attributes ofthe profile of the user are then selected and delivered to the user inoperations 1612 and 1614.

The user is allowed to manually select which of the delivered contentsare depicted on a display in operation 1616. The user is also allowed inoperation 1618 to selectively position the delivered contents on thedisplay.

The analysis of the profile may occur in real time. The user may also beidentified by using a cookie, receiving user input, and digitalcertificates. As an option, a time when the user last viewed thecontents may also be identified with portions of the contents that havebeen modified or added since the time when the user last viewed thecontents being indicated. As another option, the user may also beallowed to rate the contents.

Further, a potential customer may be selected from a plurality of usersand an act may be performed to entice the potential customer to become areal customer. Also, an activity may further be conducted to retain acurrent customer and a demand generating application may be provided.

Enterprises must respond by capitalizing on the new potential theinteractive mediums offer; to reach, communicate, and interact withcustomers. The way enterprises interact with their customers continuesto change due to demand for increased convenience, better access, higherlevels of interactivity, and faster fulfillment. As a result, morecustomer interactions are done through electronic means (e.g., home PCs,automated teller machines, automated voice response, 800-numbers, andthe Internet). Regardless of the particular medium the customer chooses,it is clear future communications will be increasinglytechnology-enabled and information-intensive and will provide thefoundation for a continuous, two-way dialogue with customers.

The benefits of new media and communications technologies to interactare numerous, enabling enterprises to provide better customer service,to capture valuable information about customer behavior and product use,and to allow greater differentiation at the point of contact. However,most next-generation customer interfaces continue to be designed to behigh tech rather than high touch.

The Relationship Management section of the Ecaf, shown in FIG. 17,covers applications and architecture components geared towardcapitalizing on the interaction with the customer. Within relationshipmanagement, there are two main driving forces: Interactive Marketing1702 and Personalization 1700.

Personalization 1700

Personalization is the continuous process of collecting, analyzing, andusing information about the end-user in order to improve theproductivity and value of their interaction with the organization.

The purpose of personalization is to interact with the customer/userwith the hopes of establishing and building a relationship, increasingsales by catering to the individual customer's needs, cross selling orup selling, and enticing users to return to the site. Unlike any otherbroadcast medium, the Internet was designed for two-way interaction,hence providing the ability to narrow-cast or customize the interactionto the individual user.

Generating demand for a site's products or services and buildingcustomer relationships are crucial for any eCommerce implementation.This is even more evident in seller-centric implementations and hype ormarketing driven implementations. The customization can occur in manyforms. The services and infrastructure can vary drastically depending onthe extent of personalization desired. Each eCommerce package mayapproach personalization using different services and infrastructure.

The enterprise complexity of the personalization approach will drive thearchitecture components and application required to implement anddeliver this strategy. It is critical for the enterprise success tounderstand how the personalization strategy will affect the entireenterprise.

Conceptual Personalization Architecture

The conceptual personalization architecture is independent of enterpriseor industry.

Implementing a personalization strategy into an existing system or a newone requires the design and development of personalization architecturecomponents. These components are essential to the success of thepersonalization strategy. They include an Identification component 1710to identify the user, Information Capture component 1712 to captureinformation about the user, Content Catalog component 1714 to manage thedifferent contents in the system, Matching component 1716 to match theuser's profile attributes with the correct content, Merge & Delivercomponent 1718 to deliver the content to the user and an Optimization &Administration component 1720 to continuously optimize thepersonalization interaction and administrate the rules and content asthey change or added. See FIG. 17. By way of example, the conceptualpersonalization architecture components illustrated in FIG. 18 will bediscussed in detail in the subcomponents of this component.

Personalization Techniques

There is currently a lot of hype and press attention centered on theidea of “personalization”. Given the wide variety of products and ideasbeing labeled “personalization”, it is apparent that a variety ofdifferent personalization delivery techniques and technologies areevolving. As with most emerging concepts, the initial techniques cover awide range of complexity in both infrastructure and approach. Mostpersonalized sites use a combination of techniques. Samplings ofpersonalization techniques are presented below:

User Acknowledgement

This is acknowledging the user or greeting them with a personalizedstatement. The statement may be a simple ‘Welcome back<user name>!’message or it may be more complex, drawing on information from the lastinteraction.

Personalized Interface

In this approach, the application or web site's user interface iscustomized for the individual. The actual page layout or page design isaltered based on the individual interacting with the system. Thiscategory can be sub-divided based on who (the site or the user) controlshow the interface is altered.

Site Morphing. Site morphing is when the site alters the user'sinterface. The site may alter the page's layout, the subjects or typesof content and information, or the site capabilities based on what isknown about the user. A variety of different user attributes oralgorithms can be used to customize the user's interface.

1. Customer Strategy. The site's interface may alter based on a customerstatus or customer strategy. A customer strategy might attempt tointeract with new site visitors with an interface geared towardselection (what is the potential value of this customer?) andacquisition (how do we acquire this customer?) while gearing theinterface and interaction for an existing customer to retention andextension (selling additional products, allowing the customer to be selfserving, or making it easier to do business with the company).

2. Customer Status. The site's interface can be altered based on thestatus of the customer. For example, a United Airline® site could becustomized based on the user's Mileage Plus® status. Non-members wouldhave a very generic site where they can perform the basic sitefunctions. Mileage Plus members would have additional capabilities (suchas flight history, mileage status or customer service chat) as well asdifferent site layouts and attributes based on their exact status.

3. Intent Determination. This technique attempts to predetermine thepurpose of the user's visit to the site and customize the navigation anduser interface to help the user quickly perform these actions. Based onthe user's information and past actions, it can often be determined themost likely reason the user is logging on and thus make those functionsor information immediately available—front and center. Assume the UnitedAirline site used intent determination to create a personalizedinterface. Over time, the site learns that the user regularly checktheir mileage status, the in-flight movie listings, food servicelisting, and airport maps. The site also notices that the last twointeractions, the user has called to upgrade to First Class. The nexttime the user logs in, realizing the customer has an upcoming flightreservation to Chicago, an O'Hare terminal map, the in-flight movie, anddinner menu is automatically displayed as well as a prompt asking theuser if they would like to upgrade to first class. The power of thisconcept becomes increasingly important as more functional web-sites aredeployed that allow the user to do possibly hundreds of differentthings. Users are already complaining about the ability to navigate evenrelatively simple sites. Personalized intent determination seeks to“de-clutter” the company's site and demonstrate to the user that thecompany “knows” them and what is important to them. Good intentdetermination is not easy to implement, but holds real power for makingcustomer-based applications easier, and more likely to be used.

User Configured Interface. The user controls the site's configuration.In this case, the site provides a facility that allows the user toconfigure the page layout, and the subjects, links or content that thepage will contain. Once configured, the user has a customized pageconfigured to their specification. When the user enters the site, theuser-configured interface is loaded. Within the user-configured site,the user has the ability to configure their own site by selecting thelayout, topics and content details that will be displayed by selectingitems from defined menu of configuration options.

Content Filtering

This technique filters the information or content displayed to the userbased on what is entered by, or known about the user. Many personalizedsites use some form of content filtering. A variety of differentfiltering techniques have emerged. Some are adaptations of traditionalclient/server techniques adapted to the Web. In the first grouping oftechniques presented here, the user controls how the information isfiltered.

User-controlled, explicit content filtering. Techniques in this categoryenable the user to filter data or content.

Personalized Information. Allows the user to see information specific tothem. The content in this case may be information about the user'sprofile, about products they have or a past order history. Thistechnique allows the user to filter the data by building ‘where clause’statement or execute ‘canned’ queries. It is often used when the user isfamiliar with the data and wishes to organize or filter it in multipleways.

User-controlled, implicit content filtering.

Collaborative filtering. Collaborative filtering determines clusters ofusers with similar interests, either by asking users explicitly or byobserving user selections and actions to determine those interestsimplicitly. This is an effective technique for creating recommendationsfor products.

Site controlled content filtering.

Contextual Inferences. Contextual inference uses human-determined rulesto select content based on behavior, interest or other profileattributes.

What's New. Based on knowing when the user last visited, the sitedetermines what content has changed since the last time the user hasinteracted with the site and display a list of changes. A personalized“what's new” is far more effective than a generic “what's new” that isshown to all users—obviously what's new is different for the user whowas here yesterday versus the one who hasn't used the site in sixmonths. The content that is marked as new may be further constrained toonly contain the areas that the user has interacted with in the past.

Configure Process or Fastpath

This technique simplifies a complex process or repetitive task bystoring the user's preferences and inputs required to complete theprocess. In most cases a series of pre-defined questions and preferenceshave to be set up in order to use this functionality. 1—Click purchasingcan be offered which allows a user to select an item with a single clickand purchase the item—by-passing the order selection, order form,shipping and payment pages. A Fastpath approach can be used where theuser has performed the function before and allowed the application orweb site to retain more static information like shipping address.

Pre-filled Forms and Information

In situations where user data is required to complete an action, thesite can use information that it currently has about the user topre-fill the form. For example, the site may fill out the order formwith the user's last address and order information or the site may fillout the list of items ordered last. This approach differs fromFastpathing in that the user still sees the pre-filled form and has theopportunity to change the data.

Personal Assistant

The site provides an interactive assistant to deliver ‘personalized helpand assistance’. Its purpose is to help the user with difficult actionsand site functionality. Based on observing and recording how often (ifever) the user has used a give function within the site, tips,suggestions, and other forms of assistance can be fine tuned to theuser's level of experience.

Non-interactive Delivery Techniques

Most of the personalization techniques described above are interactivepersonalization techniques. Content and information is personalized forthe user in real time—while the user interacts with the application orsite. Some forms of personalization can also be used in anon-interactive, or “push” mode

“Push” (or “server-push”) is where the delivery of information to a useron the Web is triggered and initiated by the information server ratherthan by the user.

In fact, the information pushed from a server to a user actually comesas the result of a subscription-like standing request created by theuser and either stored on the server or on their local machine. Thisprogram captures and stores the user's profile locally and thenperiodically initiates requests for information on the user's behalffrom the server.

Push technologies enable an enterprise to reach and provide value totheir customer outside of the traditional interactions. Of thepersonalization techniques described above, content filtering doesn'trequire that it be delivered though an interactive session. Keep in mindthat push does not necessarily mean personalized. A site may simple pushthe same information to all users or subscribers. Personalized pushrefers to information that is filtered based on a specific user'srequest or profile or where the delivery is scheduled for a specificuser. There are a variety of different legitimate business reasons topush a users information. The following are some examples ofpersonalized push:

Information Delivery. A user subscribes to receive information on ascheduled basis. The information that is pushed is either determinedthrough user selection—the user selects the subjects and type ofinformation that they wish to receive, or the site determines whatinformation the user may be interested in receiving based on theirprofile information. For example, at an investment web site, users areallowed to subscribe to investment information feeds. The user decidedto receive a daily feed of the stock quotes for the commodities theyhold. The site pushes this information and additionally pushes newsarticles and stock recommendations based on the user's portfolioholdings.

Event Reminders. The user subscribes to receive event reminders from theweb site. An event reminder might remind the user of specific dates ofinterest such as a birthday or anniversary, a bill reminder or that anaction is required in the near future.

Information Update. A site may also push updates to a user. For example,Microsoft's Expedia allows users to request fare updates. A user canchoose a specific destination of interest. If the fare to this locationchanges, the user is notified of the fare update.

Don't be a junk e-mailer. The push medium is powerful and potentiallyless costly than conventional mail. This doesn't justify its use as junkmail. It does not work because everyone receives junk mail, and junkmail that ends up in the trash is failed target marketing efforts.Personalize it. Deliver valuable information that the customer isinterested in. Allow them to select the topics, how to filter thecontent and the frequency.

Personalization Process

Personalization is actually a catchall for several underlying technologycapabilities needed to create a personalized interaction between anorganization and a user. By breaking the underlying technology and logicinto simpler components, one can build an understanding of the processesand technology needed to deliver personalized applications.

Personalization is the continuous process of collecting, analyzing, andusing end-user information in order to improve the productivity andvalue of their interaction with the organization. Implicit in thisdefinition is the need to do a number of basic things. Simply put, thereneeds to be some method for identifying the user, collecting (ordetecting) and storing user information, analyzing it, assessing whatcontent or functionality is appropriate, and present it to the user.

FIG. 19 illustrates a simple personalization process 1900. Mostpersonalization techniques utilize this process in some fashion oranother. The complexity and the details of the process may vary based onthe technique. The following is a description of the differentpersonalization process components.

Identification 1902—The first step is to identify the user. This enablesthe rest of the personalization process components. One must know whomone is talking to, in order to personalize “personalize” the experience.

Information Capture 1904—The next step is to collect information aboutthe user. This may be done with implicit or explicit techniques at thedirection of the user, or controlled by the system. The goal is tocapture information that will assist in determining and delivering avaluable interaction.

Analysis and Refinement—Once the data is captured, it may need to berefined before it is usable. The system needs the ability to analyze thedata and draw insight or conclusions about the information andinteraction. The refinement may transform the data from questionnairesor implicit observation to be usable with the matching rules and contentindexing strategy.

Match 1906—When the personalization strategy is developed, a base of‘Personalization Matching Factor’ and rules (based on who, what, where,when, why . . . ) are created. These matching factors and rules arenecessary to determine the content, navigation, and layout appropriatefor the user.

Merge and Delivery 1908—Upon determining the appropriate information andformat, the information needs to be merged and deliverer to the user.This may be through an interactive interface or through a pushmechanism.

Personalization Optimization 1910—Personalization is a complex andevolutionary process. The ability to gather metrics and measurements onthe personalization process in order to perform rule or datatranslations, model tuning and reporting is essential to maximizing theconcept's potential.

Personalization Strategy

Personalization will continue to be adopted by the market place.Numerous sites have incorporated personalization techniques into theirsites and the marketplace is full of independent software vendorscreating personalization related software.

Each enterprise must assess their personalization opportunities fromtheir own perspective and develop their own personalization strategy.The personalization strategy must be integrated with the enterprise'sexisting customer relationship, technology and eCommerce strategies.

Developing a Personalization Strategy

Using the Opportunity matrix given below, the opportunities wherepersonalization typically delivers the most value in within the Interactdomain. This area consists of opportunities where the organization isinteracting with the user or the user is attempting to engage in adialog. The publishing slice and Knowledge Management aspects of theInteract slice are the areas which are typically the secondary areas ofpersonalization opportunity with the transact slice being last.

Process Publish Interact Transact Develop Research and Capture customerIntegrated design product product feedback; Systems and informationco-design services products Generate Product information; InteractiveDemand- Demand advertising marketing; generated Market of One PricingFulflll Product availability Customer Order/deliver/pay; Demandinformation relationship management loyalty programs Plan and Publishpolicies and Knowledge Internal Manage procedures; managementpurchasing; Enterprise HR & Finance info HR & Benefits systems

When evaluating what opportunities exists, all areas should beconsidered. The value of the personalized interaction will be dependenton many factors such as the type of products and services (can they bepersonalized?) or the type of relationship with the customer or consumerand the ability to capture user information.

A formal personalization strategy should be established that includedthe near term goals and future vision. Many companies jump right inwithout any guidance or realization on how they are growing or enhancingthe enterprise. The strategy should begin with the big picture. Performan examination of the critical forces affecting the enterprise and howthese forces affect the business process. What are the drivers? Society,marketing, technology, business/industry? With the personalizationmarket emerging, there are still with many unproven business cases andunproven technology. Firms should not engage in personalization simplebecause they can, nor should they fall prey to the unproven expectationsgenerated by vendors or marketing hype. Firms consideringpersonalization must frame personalization in the context of trueenterprise goals (increasing customer retention or increase customerextension), then determine how personalization will help accomplishthese goals.

The personalization strategy should evaluate the complexity of thepersonalization, the cost and time to implement and the potentialbusiness impact. In many cases, a true one-to-one personalized site maynot make sense. Creating millions of varieties of a product will onlycomplicate the interaction to the point that the user is overwhelmed. Insome cases engaging in simple personalized dialogues may be the bestnear and midterm solutions.

Since different users may wish to interact differently, there may bemany right answers to the personalization strategy. Some users are selfserving and want to have the tools to explore or make choices on theirown, others want immediacy, others may want intimacy such that theirfeed back and options register with the company. See FIG. 20 for agraphical depiction of personalization from no customization at 2000 toone-on-one personalization at 2002.

The type of dialog that the site engages with the user may vary based onthe user. In some cases no personalization or customization should beperformed. As more information is captured on the user, the correct typeof dialog should be assessed. Determining the correct touch points andlevel of complexity of the personalization techniques is an importantpart of the enterprise's personalization strategy.

Common Impediments to Personalization

Listed below are some of the common impediments to personalization.

1. Cost—The cost of implementing sophisticated personalization is veryhigh. The annual cost of maintaining a highly personalized Web site willlikely be even greater than the implementation cost.

2. Software Immaturity—Several of the Web measurement and analytictechniques used to segment users based on behavior and preferences comestraight from academia and have not been adequately tested in the realworld yet.

3. Vendor Immaturity—Many of the vendors offering the most sophisticatedpersonalization software are small start-ups founded by academics. Thesecompanies are still developing their strategies and growth plans, andare liable to change course over the next few years.

4. Content Management—Content must be created and stored in such a waythat it can be flexibly combined and frequently modified.

5. Integration with marketing databases—To be more than a novelty,personalization will require tight integration with marketing databases.This presents a serious integration challenge, and may necessitate thecreation of an enterprise wide strategy for the collection,normalization and analysis of customer data.

6. Required Maintenance—Personalization requires dedicated maintenance.While much of the process of personalization can be automated, theconstruction of the business rules used to match content to visitors andthe creation of the metadata tags required to classify all content stillrequire a tremendous amount of human oversight. The need for suchoversight is only compounded by the fact that personalization becomesexponentially more complex as the number of visitors and amount ofavailable content increases. The net result is that firms that decide toengage in personalization without ramping up staff adequately will fail.

7. Personalization Failure—If the personalization technique fails todeliver the correct message or product, the result may be devastating.The last thing a personalization technique should do is destroy ordamage relationships.

Implementation Considerations

The architecture components and processes will differ depending on thetype of personalization technique implemented. For each technique, thereare important considerations and differences that should be understood.Each technique will vary in approach, information required, anddelivery. The following items should be considered:

1. Triggering the Personalization Process—What triggers thepersonalization process? Does the user control the process or does thesite? Is the process triggered when the user requests a page or DCAwithin a page or is it triggered by a background process based onimplicit information capture?

2. User Profile Information—What information does the personalizationprocess require? What is the data source or where is the informationstored? How and when is it captured?

3. Matching Logic—What drives the matching logic? How is the ruledefined? Can the user configure the rule? Does the rule optimize andlearn by itself? What happens if the information needed does not exist,does the site attempt to capture it?

4. Content—What is the potential content? How is it stored? How is thecontent merged and displayed? What is the extent of content management?

5. Definition and Maintenance—Who is responsible for configuring andmaintaining the rule, matching logic, or Personalization technique? Whatare the metrics that will measure its ROI? How are these metricscaptured?

These questions can be answered in many ways. The impact the answershave is dependent on the enterprise and its personalization strategy.

A few specific techniques to consider are detailed here:

1. Personal Acknowledgment—In the case of a personal acknowledgment, therule set may be well defined and the user is not even aware that itexists. There is also no way for the user to alter or customize thecontent. An example of the personal acknowledgment would be a simplegreeting that says “Hello <User>, Good Afternoon”. The rule is based ontime of day, as determined by the system time. Once the user enters thesite, the rule is executed. Based on the result to the system wouldgreet the user with a ‘Good Morning, Good Afternoon, or Good Evening’.In this case, the rule is set and does not get altered.

2. Content Filtering—Content Filtering works very similar to personalacknowledgment, but it allows the user to alter the content they wish tosee. The rule set is not as clearly defined as personal acknowledgment,rather a shell of the rules is in place and the user has the ability tocustomize the attributes to the rules. Content Filtering allows the userto define what it is they wish to see on their page. On a site, the useris able to select what information is important for them to view. Userscan select whether or not they want to see information about sports,weather, U.S. news, World News, states, and many more. Whichever optionsthe user selects, are the types of stories that will be displayed ontheir personalized page. The user should also be given the option tochange their options at any time. In this case, the rule shell isdefined, however the attributes are changeable by the user at any time.

3. Custom Interface—The Custom Interface example takes the concepts ofContent Filtering one step farther. In this case, the user not only hasthe option of setting the content attributes, but they are also able toset the page attributes as well. By giving the user the ability to setthe page attributes, they set up the layout of their page so the itemsare what they want to see, and where they want to see them. Here, thesame form of the rule shell is used, but the user also gets many otheroptions that allow them to set up the page as they desire.

4. Personal Assistant—The idea of a personal assistant has beenpopularized by Microsoft in their addition of the personal assistant toMicrosoft Office. If one begins to have trouble or is unable to figureout what to do, the Personal Assistant is there to help. This type ofinterface is different from that of the other types mentioned. In thisexample, the system is designed to be a learning system and is situationbased. That is, it is designed to monitor what actions the user isperforming and trying to determine if the user is lost. If the systemnotices the user is continually returning to the section of the sitedesigned to change their address, but has not been successful in gettingtheir address changed, then the personal assistant would be launched.The assistant would try to help the user follow the needed steps tochange their address successfully. This type of site is not built uponhard-set rules, but rather is designed to learn as much as possibleabout the user as it goes.

Identification 1710

The first task of the personalization engine is to identify the user.Unlike the everyday person to person interactions where a person relieson recognizing the another's face, voice or other attributes to identifythe other person, identifying a user on-line can be a difficult process.The simple task of identifying users does not prove to be a simple taskat all. A system may personalize an interaction based on the informationcaptured during a single session or information gathered over the entireduration of the relationship. Regardless, the information that iscaptured needs to be associated with the user. In order to track a user,an identification or tracking mechanism needs to be created.

Identification Techniques

A variety of techniques can be used to identify the user. The techniquemay depend on the site's security requirement and privacy concerns.Today, the most common approaches are to either create a cookie on theclient machine or to have an identification system on the server, suchas a user login. In the future, digital certificates will be moreprevalent, and should become the dominant identification method.

Client Side Storage—Cookie

A Cookie is a small text file placed on the client machine's hard driveby a Web server. It is essentially a user's identification card, andcannot execute code or deliver viruses. It is unique to the user and canonly be used by the server that issued it. Although this is a commonmethod for identifying a user, there are many risks associated with it.

Cookie may expire or be deleted by the user.

Multiple people may use the same client machine. Identifying what useris on the machine may be very complex. This may result in multiplecookies or a complex cookie that can identify multiple users.Regardless, the cookie may not be able to determine what user iscurrently on the system.

A user may use multiple machines. In this case, the new/other machinemay not have the user's cookie and will not be able to identify theuser.

The user has the ability to disable the use of cookies within theirbrowser. There is an option that the user can set that will tell theirbrowser to reject all cookies. If the user does this, then he or shewill be unidentifiable.

Server Side Application Logic

This technique requires the user to log-in or sign on to the site. Thisrequires the creation of a user ID and password to utilize the systemand the resources needed to validate and store the ID and password. Withthis technique, the user must remember their log-in name and password.Additional services to lookup log-in names or request new passwordsshould also be provided.

Certificates and Digital ID's

In every day life people carry different forms of identification; aperson's on-line identity may be no different. Modem cryptographictechnology offers certificates or digital IDs that will serve aselectronic forms of identification. Digital certificates are stillevolving and the key players and details on how the pieces tie togetherare still falling into place.

One example of an effective use of a certificate is Firefly Passport.There the certificate is tied to a list of user profile information.(Microsoft purchased Firefly for this technology. The name is apt tochange over time.) The Firefly Passport gives users an application withwhich to control their personal information and payment details. Theinformation can be dispensed selectively to third parties to use.

A combination of techniques may also be used. The cookie may be used forthe initial identification or the default ID for the Log-in process,while the server side log-in process would then be used to verify theidentity of the user. It is important to make this process seamless andunobtrusive. The identification process should fade in the background.It should be present yet invisible and unobtrusive.

Relating Multiple ID's

Creating a log-in or sign-in process introduces the traditional problemof multiple log-ins, (or ID's) from a site or enterprise perspective. Ifa user forgets their login, they may simply create a new one. This mayresult in multiple logins for the user, and any information related tothe previous login is not associated to the user's new one. To preventthis, a facility to look up existing login names or request a newpassword should be provided.

As in the client/server world, a single or universal log-in is advised,especially for systems that wish to personalize their site'sinteraction. If the enterprise already has an existing user base,pushing out IDs to users or allowing the ability to re-use the existingID should be encouraged. For example, United Airlines created a PIN(Personal Identification Number) for each of their Mileage Plus membersthat provided access to the Mileage Plus section of their Web site andpushed (physically mailed) this out to the respective user. The PIN wastheir mileage plus number with a password associated with it. By doingthis, they were able to reuse their existing identification process andlogin IDs.

Information Capture 1712

The personalization process is data intensive and is driven by theinformation collected about the system's users. The more information thesite collects and retains about a user, the more likely it can add valueand interact on a personalized level. With out this crucial data, thereis no basis to shape the interaction or drive the personalizationtechniques.

Personalization Profile

The information collected about a user is considered the user's profile.Logically, this is everything the enterprise (site) knows about theuser. Attributes from the user's profile will be the input to thepersonalization process and the driving data for the differentpersonalization techniques. A profiling strategy should be developed bythe enterprise that addresses what information to capture, the sourcesof this information, the methods to capture it, and how this informationwill be stored. If the customer is to be treated the same at all pointsof interaction, a common profile should be developed that is shared byall departments and applications.

Determining what information to capture or what attributes make up theuser's profile can be a difficult process. In most cases, the profilewill be based on the enterprise's personalization strategy, thepersonalization techniques to be implemented, the data required toimplement them and a mix of any user information deemed usable that canbe captured. In general, the site needs to capture the informationrequired to perform the analysis aspect of the personalization processfor each of the personalization technique to be implemented. Thisinformation might include:

Basic user information such as name and address.

User demographics, psychographics, and sociographics such as gender,height or age.

User transaction or enterprise data such as purchase history.

User's specified configuration information such as the attribute's ofthe user's personal home page.

Interaction information such as content viewed or duration of contentdisplayed to the user.

Each personalization technique may require a different set of attributesfrom the user's profile. The information needed to deliver a ‘SiteControlled Contextual Inferences’ will be very different than theinformation needed for ‘pre-filled forms.’ Site Controlled ContextualInferences Content Filtering requires the creation of rules and thenecessary user information that satisfy the rules or ‘ContextualInferences’. (The information required to satisfy a rule is referred toas Personalization Matching Factors (PMFs) and will be discussed in moredetail in the Matching Logic component.) For instance, the rule may bebased on gender, age, purchase history or customer demographics. On theother hand, the information that is used to Pre-Fill forms may be adifferent set of user profile attributes. For example, this might bename, address, shipping information and payment information. Anotherpersonalization technique may use the same set of user information ormay require another subset of user data.

Physically, this data may come from many sources within the enterprise.Information may be gathered directly from the user's interaction withthe personalized site through implicit or explicit information gatheringtechniques. Information may be used from other data sources such asexisting application's transactional data, the enterprises' datawarehouse, or from other internal or external data sources.

The situation should be analyzed to determine if the ‘profile data’should be replicated and stored in additional profile tables or if itshould remain within the existing data source. Some personalizationtechniques will require additional tables to store the user's profileattributes needed to deliver the personalization technique. This will bediscussed in more detail within the Matching section of the paper.

Profiling Standards

The industry has recognized the importance of personalization and therequirement of a user profile information to deliver personalization. Todate, a profiling standard or definition of a common ‘User Profile’ doesnot exist. This means that each site will be required to capture andretain its own set of profile information. From a user's perspective,this introduces additional annoyance since they will be prompted bypersonalized sites for the same basic information. The Open ProfilingStandard has been proposed to address this issue.

Platform for Privacy Preferences and Open Profiling Standards

The Internet Privacy Working Group (IPWG) began to develop the Platformfor Privacy Preferences (P3P). P3P extends the Platform for InternetContent Selection (PICS) standard with notice and consent capabilitiesto enable automatic negotiation of preferences, policies, andinformation exchange. If P3P settings are accurate, Web surfers shouldbe able to surf at will and only see P3P notices when they stray out ofbounds of what is already approved in the profile.

Netscape, FireFly Network Inc. and VeriSign have introduced OpenProfiling Standard (OPS), a proposed standard that helps to address theissues of multiple profiles. This proposed standard would provideInternet site developers with a uniform way of getting users' PersonalProfile information in order to personalize interaction. The OPS is astandard being worked on as part of the World Wide Web Consortium'sPlatform for Privacy Preferences (http://www.w3c.org). It is compatiblewith the existing vCard and X.509 digital certificate technologystandards, which allow for user identification and authentication overthe Web.

Individuals will have a Personal Profile that contains their personalinformation, including their names, e-mail address, mailing address, andany other information they wish to provide. This profile will be storedon their personal computer (or securely stored in a corporate-wide orglobal directory). The first time that an individual visits a Web sitethat supports OPS, the Web site will request information from thePersonal Profile. To protect their privacy, users can decide whetherthey want all or part of the information to be given to publishers, andwhich ones can see it. In addition, if the Web site collects additionalinformation about the individual's preferences, it can (with theindividual's permission) store that information in the Personal Profilefor future use.

Some of the benefits to the user are as follows:

Convenience of maintaining only one set of personal information for manyWeb sites, which can save time and the inconvenience of giving the sameinformation to multiple Web sites.

Enhances personal privacy by allowing users, instead of Web sites, tohave control over releasing this private information to Web sites.

The security that can be offered by possibly encrypting the locallystored information or the transmission of this information to Web sites.

Users have the ability to selectively release or withhold information intheir Personal Profiles, rather than the “all or nothing” process ofaccepting or rejecting cookies that the user cannot examine. OPS givesindividuals both more flexibility and more control over personalinformation than cookies can.

P3P and OPS have common goals and have unified their projects. Thegoverning term is now P3P.

Information Capture Techniques

Once the profile strategy has been defined and the sources have beenidentified, the next step is capturing the information. In many cases,the information comes from existing data sources. In these cases thedata may require refinement or replication. The remaining informationcan be captured directly from the user's interaction with the site.

In most cases, the user will control the personalization process ortechnique. In these cases the user is aware of the personalizationtechnique and chooses to use the interface that will deliver it. Forexample, a configured interface such as My Yahoo! requires the user toselect the layout and topics they wish to display on the personalizedpage. The configuration (or setup) interface captures the neededinformation and adds this to the user's logical profile.

On the other end of the spectrum are information capture techniques thatthe site controls. The site collects information about the interaction.The interactive information capture techniques can be categorized asexplicit or implicit.

Explicit Information Capture

Explicit information capture usually provides an interface to collectprofile information. The site explicitly asks the user to provide theinformation. Examples of explicit information capture techniques are:

Registration Forms. A form that the user fills out to register to thesite. This may include interests, demographics or any other profileattributes that site has defined and the user may be willing to provide.

Static or Dynamic Questionnaires. During the interaction, the site mayprompt the user to answer questions. The questions may be based on theanswer to the previous question. (Note: The registration form or arating interface may also be an example of a questionnaire.) The sitemight ask a user a question if there is a Personalization Knowledge Gap.(A Personalization Knowledge Gap is the difference between the datarequired to deliver a specific personalized interaction and the amountof information the site has collected on the user.) Another examplemight be a need assessment questionnaire. For example ProgressiveInsurance's site provides a list of questions used to analyze the user'sinsurance needs.

Rating Interface. The site may provide an interface that allows the userto rate content or products. A rating interface is often used withcollaborative filtering.

Filter or Query Interface. An interface that allows the user to directlymanipulate or filter the content that is displayed.

Configuration Interface. An interface that allows the user to configurethe site or select the content to be displayed.

Implicit Information Capture

Implicit Techniques gather information about the interaction withoutdirectly asking the user. In essence, the site is recording theinteraction in search of useful information. The user may be unawarethat the site is capturing information. The most common implicittechnique is clickstream analysis. The site records the user's actions,what they clicked on or where they navigated to, the content displayed,time spent or the duration a graphic was displayed. The informationgathered is then analyzed for patterns and trends.

Information Capture Concerns

The goal of a personalized site is to increase the value of theinteraction of the user with the organization. Unfortunately, the sitehas the potential to do the opposite. The personalization aspects of thesite could actually offend or deter customers. The approach the siteuses for information capture will play a large part in the personalizedsite's success. The following are some items to be aware of whencapturing user profile information:

Provide Value. In general, people do not like to give away personalinformation. To overcome this, the site needs to offer value for theinformation capture or provide a win-win situation. If the informationcapture results in something benefiting the user, they are more likelyto provide the information. A good example is the grocery-preferredcard. For instance Jewel Food Stores offered a preferred card whereusers receive discounts off of selected groceries each week. The usermust present their card to receive the discount. Jewel obtains valuableuser profile attributes such as purchase history and trends while thecustomer receives tangible discounts. The same analogy can be applied tothe explicit information capture techniques used by the personalizedsite.

Small Appropriate Questions. Filling out long forms or questionnairescan also be an instant turn off. Users don't want to be burdened byinformation capture techniques. They have their own goals and agendasand if the site distracts them from accomplishing this, the site riskslosing a customer. If the information capture is not directly tied tosome value that the user will instantly see, break it into to smallunits or single questions. In addition, ask only what is needed and whenit is appropriate. If the user is required to fill out a longquestionnaire at the start of the interaction or when they first visitthe site, they are likely to leave. By gathering the information onlywhen it is needed and tied to tangible value, the user is more likely toprovide accurate information and remain at the site.

Accuracy Issues. There is nothing that stops the users from lying orproviding false information. Although there is no sure-fire way toprevent this, the site can reduce the possibilities of this occurring.As mentioned above, users are more likely to be truthful if whenanswering questions that are tied to perceived value or in smallamounts. The site should explain the benefit of accurate information andhow it will benefit the user by serving them better.

Information may also change over time. The user's interests or theirmarital status may change over time. It may be necessary to occasionallyverify information. If derived information is stored, these may alsobecome inaccurate over time. For example, driver status may change overtime due to the occurrence of moving violations or a change in maritalstatus. The same risks apply to information captured implicitly.

Privacy Issues. The fine line of a user's personal space and their legalrights is another possible area for concern.

Regulatory Compliance. The details of a user's legal rights are stillnot clear. In the near future, legal regulations will require allcompanies to place privacy statements on their Web sites and to providecustomers with a mechanism to examine and challenge personal datacollected about them. Customer access to personal information will bedifficult to implement due to user authentication requirements, and theunpredictable nature of data requests and alterations. In either case,failure to comply with a site's stated privacy policy or failure toprovide customers with a copy of their personal information will meanlegal prosecution of organizations under national regulations.

Defining Preferences or Personality. The definition of “private”information is open to debate. For example, the European Data ProtectionDirective defines a number of areas (e.g., political affiliation) thatare considered particularly private and, therefore, subject to enhancedcontrols. However, the ability of the Web to follow users' searchpatterns and to customize content provided by certain sites (e.g., mostcurrent-affairs sites) will offer the de facto ability to identifyusers' viewing preferences without the explicit authorization that thelaw would require if they were identifying their own characteristics.This issue will cause the most friction between U.S. and Europeanregulators, as the United States tends to assess privacy on the basis ofcontext and usage, while Europe bases it on an absolute measure of thedata's perceived privacy (see Note 1). The collection of data that couldbe used to derive sensitive information will be subject (in eachjurisdiction) to the equivalent privacy regulations as that level ofsensitive information (0.7 probability).

Children. Vendors whose Web sites are designed for children will besubject to greater public scrutiny for violations of privacy regulationsand conventions. It will be politically sensitive for children's Websites to perform customization of content or context across multiplevisits.

Selling information to third party providers. General data privacyguidelines state that information cannot be used in ways not explainedto the subject at the time of collection. The problem results from thefact that the most personal information (e.g., a stock portfolio) isalso the most valuable when sharing information with other applicationproviders. This can cause tension between the value that the Web siteprovides its visitors (in terms of the degree of personalization that itis offering) compared with the value it can extract from the servicethat it provides (by sharing the information with advertisers orthird-party organizations). Managing the conflicting requirements ofpersonalization and information sharing will become a key element indetermining the success of a Web site.

Content Catalog 1714

Today, the Web content of most sites is unmanaged. The enterprise doesnot utilize a method of tracking the content or the attributes of thecontent. Instead, the enterprise has a pool of content that may spanmultiple directories, departments and web servers. When content iscreated it is added to this pool of content by simply adding it to theWeb server's directory and adding the necessary link required to displayit. The content within this pool may be duplicated, outdated or unused.In short, the enterprise has no idea of the extent of the content orinformation about the attributes of the content.

Unmanaged content may be an obstacle for personalization. In order todeliver personalized content or filtered content the system must knowwhat content exists and the attributes of this content. A contentcatalog 2100 or content management system should be used to manage theenterprise's content. A simple definition of a content catalog is givenbelow.

What is deemed as content can take many forms. As illustrated in FIG.21, content may be Web pages (HTML pages) 2102, graphics (images) 2104,audio, video, or even information 2106 and messages. How this content isstored may also take many forms; it may be stored in table, files ordirectories. The content catalog needs to be aware of what contentexists and where it is stored. This can be achieved by retainingattributes of the content and providing indexing to the content. Contentattributes might be physical properties such as what type of content itis (HTML page, graphic, audio file, video file or textual message) orthe size of the content. The difficulty is attempting to store theheuristic or analytical attributes and making these attributes availablefor personalization techniques. The indexing strategy should includefall text and attribute indexing which provides efficient access for theenterprise's users and potentially any integrated members of theenterprise's value chain.

Matching Logic 1716

This personalization component needs to provide the intelligence tomatch the user's profile attributes with the correct content and deliverthis content to the user. Bridging the profile information to thecontent is truly the heart of the personalization architecture. Avariety of different approaches can be implemented to accomplish thistask. The complexity of this matching logic is directly proportional tohow flexible, robust and dynamic the personalization aspects of the siteare.

The Match concept is the process of analyzing the information that isknown about the user and determining the correct content to display tothem. Once the user profile attributes have been identified, they mustbe applied against the rules or matching logic defined within the sitein order to determine the appropriate content to display. Three inputsare required in order to complete the Match process:

User Profile Information—This information consists of what is knownabout the user. The processes used to gather this information areexplained earlier in this section.

Content Available—The content on the system includes any informationdisplayed to the user. In this case, content includes; Images, Text,Personalized Statements, Applets, and Digital Information.

System Defined Rules or Matching Logic—In order to use the user profileinformation effectively, one must have a clear set of rules definedagainst which to evaluate each user. The rules are defined to match theuser information with the content

A simple example of this matching logic is a defined query. The site mayprovide the logic for a user to view their account information. In thiscase the profile information is their user ID or account number, therule is the defined query (SELECT account_info FROM Account whereAcct_Id=:User_Acct_Id) and the content is the user's account informationstored in Account table. If the content is stored in a relational orobject database, SQL queries are an effective method of accessing thisdata. In this case the ‘defined rule’ takes the form of a SQL statement.Unfortunately, most of the content is not stored in relational databasesor is not directly related to something as simple as a user's accountID. Instead the content is web pages or massive amounts of news feedsand textual information. These situations require a different andpossibly more complex approach and infrastructure to perform thematching logic. In this environment, the rules are usually composed ofPersonalization Matching Factors (PMFs).

Personalization Matching Factor (PMFs)

A Personalization Matching Factor (PMF) is the building block for arule. It is the information required to perform the matching aspect ofthe personalization process. This is thedemographic/psychographic/sociographic or any other information thatwill be needed to drive the personalization process. A PMF might be assimple as the user's gender or a complex attribute such as driver typethat is derived from a group of data. Included in the definition of thePMF should be the definition necessary to create it.

Developing PMFs will require involvement of the Marketing department andother business entities that understand the customer strategy and theenterprise's customers. It is important to understand the customerneeds, what the customer expects, and what makes a difference to themwhen determining and creating PMFs.

PMFs should be restricted to information that can be realisticallycaptured by the site as well as information that is reliable andaccurate. Conceptually, a PMF can be any piece of derived or anyconceived information. For example, a PMF could be the user's gender,age, marital status, number of children, the number of years they havebeen a customer, their profession, driving record, interests such assports, travel or other leisure activities, favorite color, apersonality trait such as if they are detail oriented or pessimistic innature, or any otherdemographic/psychographic/sociographic piece ofinformation. How would this information be captured? What are theattributes that would be used to derive this? What is the accuracy ofthis information? Why is this PMF used to personalize? These are thetypes of questions that need to be asked when determining possible PMFs.

A PMF needs to have a clear definition and a finite list ofpossibilities. For example, a site may create a PMF called ‘AgeClassification’. The site would need to define what it means by the PMF‘Age Classification’. For this example, age classification is simple alogical group of users based on their age. The values would be:

Age Age Classification 0-12 Child 13-19 Teenager 20-40 Young Adult 41-64Middle Aged 65-125 Senior Citizen 125-200 Ancient

A PMF may also be a combination of low level data. If a PMF of‘Insurance Risk’ were created, the required data would be far more thanage. It would need to include age, driving history, vehicle, region andpotentially other data.

Rules and Matching Logic

The PMFs are the building blocks for rules and matching logic. UnlikeSQL extensions, there is no industry standard method for accessing ‘Web’content and creating rules. Some approaches are detailed below.

Simple Conditional Rules—The simplest process is to define a clear-cutset of rules against which to evaluate the PMFs. These rules aregenerally simple and have only a few conditions to evaluate. A simplerule would follow this structure:

User Variable + Comparison Operator + Predetermined Value (or PMF) Age =Young Adult (20-40)

The user variable is a specific user's profile attribute or value forthe rule's PMF. In this case it is the user's age which may be derivedfrom the user's birth date and the current date. The next element in thestructure is a comparison operator. The final element is the PMF or thegroup or data the rule is based on. Based on the user's age and thegranularity of the PMF the rule may have numerous results. Each resultmay point to a different set of defined content. The entire age rule maybe something like this:

User's age = Child (<12) deliver content ABC DEF = Teenager (13-19)deliver content GHI = Young Adult (20-40) deliver content JKL = MiddleAged(41-64) deliver content MNO = Senior (>64) deliver content

A rule will be made more complex with the addition of a logical operatorthat allows a rule to have multiple PMFs. For example a rule may simplybe ‘AND’ multiple PMFs together. In this example, the rule would looklike this:

User Variable A + Comparison Operator + Predetermined Value (or PMF) AAND User Variable B + Comparison Operator + Predetermined Value (or PMF)B

A piece of the actual rule would look like:

Age = Young Adult (20-40) AND Gender = M (Male)

This rule would now be the age-gender rule. It evaluates the user's ageclassification and gender. If the users age classification is ‘YoungAdult’ and male, then statement evaluates to be true and action is takenor the specified content is delivered.

At first glance, this may appear to be hard coded. If directly placed ina script this would be a true statement. Instead, the infrastructureshould be created that can define rules, evaluate rules, assign a ruleto a dynamic content area or page, and assign content to specific ruleresults. Instead of hard coding this with in the application or script,the rule component or dynamic content area (DCA) is placed in thescript. When the DCA is encountered, the architecture handles evaluatingthe rule and matching the defined profile attributes to the rule inorder to deliver the appropriate content.

Conceptually this is easy, but creating this infrastructure is verydifficult. For this reason a rule engine or personalization vendor willbe brought in. Numerous independent software vendors (ISVs) arecapitalizing on this niche and creating their own proprietarypersonalization infrastructure. These vendors are covered in more detailin the accompanying Vendor document.

Forward Chaining Rules—Forward chaining still uses the fundamentals ofsimple rules, but facilitates building upon whatever user informationmay be available at the time. In this case, if only a small amount ofinformation about the user is available, then the rules are determinedbased only upon that data. Once more information is gathered, the rulesallow for more complex conditions to be evaluated against. The rules areset similar to this:

User Variable + Comparison Operator + Predetermined Value (or PMF) ANDif the following is known User Variable + Comparison Operator +Predetermined Value (or PMF) Age = 20-40 AND if Gender is known to be =M

The above rule will be evaluated differently according to the amount ofinformation known about the user. For instance, If all that is knownabout the user is his/her age the rule will evaluate in one way, ifhis/her gender is known, then the rule will be evaluated in another way.

Learning System (Neural Network)—The premise behind the learning systemis that it will monitor the user's actions and perform differentlydepending upon what the system learns from the user actions. Thistechnique is a complex combination of rules and relationships using theuser's interactions with the site to increase the knowledge of theenterprise about the customer. The best way to describe this is with adefinition of neural networks. A neural network is a system of programsand data structures approximating the operation of the human brain.Typically, a neural network is initially “trained” or fed large amountsof data and rules about data relationships (for example, A grandfatheris older than a person's father is). A program can then instruct thenetwork how to behave in response to an external stimulus, or it caninitiate activity on its own based on the user's actions.

Inductive reasoning/Collaborative Filtering—Firefly definescollaborative filtering as a technology that emulate the socialprocesses of people making recommendations based on an understanding ofone another's preferences. Individual agents track and choose itemsbased on individuals' tastes and preferences.

The core technology personalizes both the delivery of content and theknowledge of related people within a defined networked environment, or“taste space.” Firefly tools correlate individual users' preferences forspecific items based on either explicit or implicit ratings ofcomparable items in other situations. These ratings may be storedentirely within a single Web site or compiled on the fly frominformation assembled from individual clients and shared servers.

Collaborative Filtering assesses a single set of user preferences toidentify an individual community of interest. Collaborative Filteringcorrelates the tastes on an individual user with the preferences ofcomparable users to develop a list of personalized recommendations. Itis some times referred to as People-to-people matching, and is aimed atautomating word-of-mouth kind of information.

Canned Queries—A system of canned queries allows the user to choose onlycertain actions that have been pre-determined for the user. The queriesonly give the user the options listed, and do not change over time.

The examples above are mainly site controlled. The site either has apre-defined rule or matching logic that will execute. The site isresponsible for determining what has been learned from the interaction,what is enabled based on the knowledge gained, what additionalinformation will provide additional insight. Where possible, the usersshould be allowed to define the rules and matching logic or the contentthey wish to view. Provide the user the structure to create a rule ordefine a query.

Defining legitimate business rules and models is as important as theinfrastructure to evaluate them. The rule may execute and content may bedelivered but if the rule doesn't make good business sense the effort iswasted. Business and marketing personnel should be involved in definingthe rules and verifying that they are correctly translated andtechnically implemented. This is another reason that the personalizationteam should include individuals from IT, the business and markingdepartments. The team needs to understand their existing and potentialcustomer, the content available, and when and why to display it.

Merge and Deliver Content 1718

The rules for matching logic should be defined as stand alone entitiesso that they may be reused in multiple situations. Each situation mayassociate the same rule to a different interaction and a different setof content. The matching logic should be associated with a template orinteraction and content should be associated with a rule result orcondition of the matching logic.

One possible method of associating a rule and content to an interactionis by using a Dynamic Content Area (DCA). A DCA is embedded with atemplate and points to a specific rule, and a rule results set will beassociated with specific content. For example a page may be explaining aparticular service to a current user. The site may wish to display onthe page a graphic that the user can relate to along with a list ofbenefits that are personalized to the user and finally list discountsthat the user might be qualified for.

A separate DCA would be used for each set of data. FIG. 22 illustratesan exemplary template 2200 with three DCAs embedded within the template.

DCA1 2202 might be a place holder for the graphic. The rule associatedwith DCA 1 might be bases on a set of PMFs such as Age and Gender.Depending on how the rule is evaluated, a different graphic might bedisplayed. (In this case a graphic is the content.)

DCA2 2204 might represent a place holder for a list of benefits the usermay receive from the service. This rule may be associated with differentPMFs. For example, the PMFs for this rule might be marital status,number and ages of children and income level. Different benefits wouldbe displayed based on how this rule is evaluated. In this case a textualstatement about benefits is considered the content.

DCA3 2206 might represent a place holder for discounts. This area mayreuse the rule created for DCA 2 but the content is different. In thiscase, the content is a list of discount based on the rule evaluation.

During the design of the site, a decision must be made to determinewhich areas of the site will provide personalized content to the user,the rules to use and matching logic associated with it, and what contentshould be displayed for each rule result. Since there is no face-to-faceinteraction with the user, identifying the content to use is veryimportant. The web site must make the users feel as though they arebeing communicated directly. Once the page is requested or encounteredby the user, the page is generated, and each DCA will request that arule be executed and the content should be generated according to theuser profile.

The normal delivery method of the content is through the use of HTTP.This method will be used to deliver the majority of the content. Thereare other methods of delivery that may be considered depending upon thecontent to be delivered. Other delivery methods includes e-mail, FTP,Push or Channels and streaming video. Since timing of the delivery isvery important, consideration must be given to developing a method ofdelivery that provides the most impact to the user and does so in atimely manner.

Administration 1720

Personalization is difficult for a number of reasons, but the biggest“gotcha” is that, above all, it requires dedicated maintenance staff.While much of the process of personalization can be automated, theconstruction of the business rules used to match content to visitors andthe creation of the metadata tags required to classify all content stillrequire a tremendous amount of human oversight. The need for suchoversight is only compounded by the fact that personalization becomesexponentially more complex as the number of visitors and amount ofavailable content increases. The net result is that firms that decide toengage in personalization without ramping up staff adequately will fail.

Personalization is a continuous process. It is not an application thatis delivered and then left unmonitored or forgotten about.Personalization techniques will need to be added, removed and modified.Rules, content, and messages will change. Most enterprises fail tomeasure their return on investments, or to directly attribute customerbehavior to certain initiatives. As a result, the enterprise ofteninvests in initiatives, promotions and campaigns without understandinghow they will affect product or customer profitability. Procedures,measurement and reporting devices, and metrics need to be created toallow for the enterprise to evaluate and improve their personalizedinteractions and deliver their customer strategy. The site may providethe customer a chance to make a purchasing decision. If they decide notto make this purchase, what is the reason why? The enterprise shouldattempt to gather information on why this result occurs and seek toprevent it in the future. The following optimization and administrationcomponents should be considered for a personalized site:

Content Rating and User Feedback. Allow the users to directly rate theinteraction and the content. The Internet is an interactive medium, butunlike a face to face interaction one can not read the user's face orinflections in their voice to determine if their needs are being met.This type of feedback needs to be built into the site. The interfaceshould be simple where the user can provide feedback with a singleclick.

Metrics Return On Investment/Information. How can one determine if thepersonalization process is helping the enterprise? Metrics should bedefined to measure the ROI. This might include reporting facilities tocapture the information needed to provide these metrics.

Administration Facilities. When designing a personalization site,maintenance of the rules and content should be considered. The peoplemost likely driving this information will not be technology oriented,and may require simple interfaces for altering rules for personalizedcontent. An IS staff member should not be needed to change rules. Thesame holds true for content. As content is added, this information willneed to be indexed and integrated with the search technology implementedat the site.

Interactive Marketing 1702

With the emergence of interactive mediums and the inherent capability togather real time information about the customer interacting with themedium, enterprise's marketing strategies and systems are becoming morecustomer-centric. With the move from mass (or targeted) marketing to aform of customer-centric marketing, enterprises must evaluate theircustomer relationship model.

Traditionally, marketing models tended to focus exclusively on customeracquisition (mass marketing) and then on customer selection(micromarketing and target marketing). However, several studies haveshown it costs between four and 10 times as much to acquire a profitablecustomer as it does to retain one. This awareness has resulted in aheightened emphasis on customer retention and extension and has been thedriving force of relationship marketing.

However, customer retention and extension are less dependent ontraditional marketing and are more tied to the value perceived by thecustomer during every interaction with the enterprise. In addition,these strategies require a different marketing infrastructure that isinformation- and customer-driven, rather than product- andcreative-driven. Thus, relationship marketing is somewhat of a misnomer,as adding value to the customer relationship is not simply a marketingchallenge, but rather a challenge involving every function within theenterprise. This business model calls for enterprises to differentiatethemselves by consistently providing superior service at every point ofcontact with the customer.

The ShARE Model

The ShARE (Selection 1730, Acquisition 1732, Retention 1736, andExtension 1734) customer relationship model 2300 is detailed in FIG. 23.See also FIG. 17. This model addresses the changes in the shift tointeractive marketing. Due to the emergence of interactive mediums,today's systems now have the ability to address all areas of the SHAREmodel.

Selection 1730

The selection portion of the SHARE model deals with determining whowithin the general population will be a company's most profitablecustomers. Selection deals with determining who makes up a product'starget audience, and allows a company to focus their attention moreaccurately. This is the area where demographic information, such as age,geography, and income are applied to produce a more finite list oflikely customers. The selection process allows businesses to makestrategic decisions such as NOT to market a snow shovel in Ecuador.

Acquisition 1732

Acquisition focuses on getting a potential customer to use one's serviceor buy one's product in the most efficient way. This area hastraditionally focused on mass marketing and measuring a business' costper thousands of consumers reached. The classic example of acquisitionis Proctor & Gamble's use of daytime television dramas in the UnitedStates to sell soap, creating what is now called the soap opera. Othermethods of acquisition include direct mailings, telephone solicitation,toll free order numbers, and, more recently, Internet advertising andonline businesses.

Advertising

Capitalizing on the two-way interaction and an audience of the generalpublic, advertising is often utilized on applications deployed on theInternet. In a browser-based implementation, the use of frames orbanners creates the possibility to dedicate a section of the display toadvertising. With most of marketing capabilities, the advertising model(services) can vary from simple static advertisements to a robustadvertising integrated with the personalized system. The implementationmethods may range from an advertisement Applet to advertising servicesintegrated with the personalization system. Detailed below are possibleservices included in a complex advertising implementation.

Storage. Storage of the advertising content should be performed in thesame fashion as the product and electronic merchandising content. Thecontent should be so it integrates well with the personalizationservices and user profiles.

Integration with Personalization. Ideally, the personalization servicesare separated and can be utilized by multiple applications. Forpersonalized advertising, profile information will be gathered and theadvertising content filtered based on the profiles. A separate processwill handle the merging and delivery of the content as well as changingthe advertisements as the user navigates through the site. Theadvertising content may include rich content such as graphics and video.

Buy Now Services. Microsoft and others are currently working ontechnology to allow a user to click on the advertisement and purchasethe item without leaving the site. These technologies are emerging andmay require a client-side wallet to perform the transaction. The push isto provide the ability to quickly purchase items of interest withoutleaving the site of interest to make the purchase. Microsoft currentlyprovides this ability using an ActiveX control integrated with aMicrosoft wallet. Others are sure to follow this trend.

Usage Metering and Reconciliation. There are different methods forbilling for advertising space. The most common billing methods are usagewhich may include: the number of times displayed, the length the add isdisplayed or the number of users to which the ad is displayed. Servicesare needed to record the usage information in order to reconcile withthe advertisement providers. Since many sites are funded by ad revenue,the accuracy of these services is crucial.

As online advertising and its supporting technology matures, newadvertising methods will emerge. For example, the use of ‘intermercial’(sometimes referred to as interstitial—meaning intertwined) ads thatautomatically pop up between pages may prove to be the next method ofchoice. It is important to ensure the advertising services remainflexible and are able to address the evolving technology used toimplement advertising.

Retention 1736

Now that companies know it is cheaper to hang on to existing customersthan to find new ones, more and more emphasis is being placed oncustomer retention. Retention focuses on keeping customers for as longas possible. The most effective way to do this, is to provide excellentcustomer service at each and every interaction with the customer. Sinceelectronic business don't provide traditional customer service, it isimportant web-based businesses have sites with appropriate supportfunctionality. The support should be easy to use, and meet the specificneeds of that product's consumers.

Recommendation Services

Recommendation functions may take up multiple formats. The most commonformat are simple services to allow the site's users to provide directfeedback, positive or negative, and recommendations about the content orproducts on the site. By providing these services, the site may create acommunity where users can interact with each other, furthering thesite's worth. For example, a sict could allow for users to submit bookreviews. The information is then available for consumption by thegeneral public. While the technology to implement this is rather simple,the process may prove to be a little more complex. The process includesreceiving input, reviewing recommendations, filtering and approvingcontent, and then posting the review or recommendations. The lack of afiltration or review process could be devastating to a site.

Another type of recommendation service makes suggestions to its userbase. These services can range from simple to complex. A more complexrecommendation service may utilize collaborative filtering.Collaborative filtering is the technique of using content or productratings from the site's user base to predict the interest otherpotential users will have in the content or products. Correlationalgorithms use the profile information, history, and/or inputpreferences to construct a correlation group of users whose ratings areeffective predictors for the new user. Prediction algorithms then usethe ratings and profile information of the users to make predictions ofthe content they most likely will find interesting. (Note: Thecollaborative filtering technique could be implemented within thepersonalization system.)

Site Announcements and Event Reminders

Additional relationship building techniques are site announcements andreminders. The underlying services are again personalized. The site hascreated content which may range from new product announcements based onthe customer's last visit or reminders of an upcoming event important tothe specific customer. For example, an event reminder could point out anupcoming wedding, personal anniversary or holiday. The user, oncereminded, may then utilize the site to act on the event. If the siteimplements complex event reminders, additional services may be needed toprovide calendar and scheduling functionality. These services may alsobe incorporated with the off-site subscription services to providereminders to users not logged into the site.

Loyalty and Return Customer Programs

Creating an environment that promotes customers to return to the site iscritical for the longevity of the site. Many of the seller-centricimplementations will utilize membership services and other incentiveprograms to try and promote customers to return. For example, sitemembers would receive discounts and additional privileges, thus buildinga better relationship with the site. Incentives like frequent shopperpoints or access to member only information are other common methods.The loyalty programs may require additional logic for permissions andcontent filtering. Most of this may be implemented by gathering andusing profiles and integration with a complex personalization system.

Return Programs are services geared toward enticing the customer toreturn to the site. The Internet eliminates two main factors affectingcustomer loyalty. The first is proximity. In the brick and mortarmedium, customers tend to shop (or browse) close to where they live orwork. The second factor is time or how long a store is open. With theInternet being 7 by 24 and geographically independent, these items areno longer relevant. For this reason, considerable effort may be gearedtoward creating return programs. The most common forms are electronicversion of current methods, although they may be more effective due topersonalization and real-time delivery.

Push and Off-Site Subscription Services

This section includes merchandising using email to push information to auser. (Note: Subscriptions to sites and information are covered in theOrder Processing—Fulfillment component.) Many of the common services forstorage, filtering, formatting and approving content would be utilized.Additional services would be needed to push the content to the desiredmailing list. Details and considerations for using push technology isincluded in application discussing the Netcentric Framework, referencedabove. Below are some basic services.

Subscription Management. Due to the Internet community frowning on junkemail and spamming, most sites have distributed their push marketingusing a subscription-oriented approach. Services should be provided toallow users to subscribe and un-subscribe from the site marketingdistributions.

Distribution Management. As the user base of the site grows, the actualdistribution mechanism needs to be robust enough to scale to handle thegrowing user base. Methods of distributing the information in a fashionthat does not impact the already increasing network traffic should beresearched.

Extension 1734

Extension asks businesses to answer the question, “How can one increasethe loyalty and profitability of this customer?”

Cross Selling and Up Selling

Cross Selling and Up Selling are similar to recommendation services.Cross selling uses some knowledge of the consumer to suggestcomplimentary or similar products in which the consumer may beinterested—“Would you like fries with that?”Up selling is an effort tosell more of the same thing, or a better version of what the consumermay currently be considering—“Would you like that Super Sized?”

Cross selling and up selling are considered an application or serviceenabled by complex personalization. Although very important from amarketing perspective, once the underlying services for complexpersonalization are in place, many of the demand generating applicationsare now possible. Cross selling or up selling could be implemented byproduct relationships in a database.

Maintenance and Administration 1008

FIG. 24 illustrates a flowchart for a method 2400 for administrating ane-Commerce system on a network. Operation of entities is monitored inoperation 2402. Entities include server processes, disk space, memoryavailability, CPU utilization, access time to a server, and/or a numberof connections in an e-Commerce system. In operation 2404, itemsincluding merchandising content, currency exchange rates, tax rates,and/or pricing in the e-Commerce system are updated at predeterminedintervals. In addition, external data stored separately from thee-Commerce system is synchronized in operation 2406 with internal datastored on the e-Commerce system. Contact information received from usersof the e-Commerce system is also managed in operation 2408. The itemsare altered based on profiles of the users of the e-Commerce system inoperation 2410.

One of the items altered based on the profiles of the users may includeprice, which may be altered to reflect a discount assigned to the user.A search may also be performed for the internal data in the e-Commercesystem prior to the synchronization of the external data.

As an option, load balancing services may also be performed thatinitiate and stop processes as utilization levels vary in the e-Commercesystem. As another option, managing of the contact information mayfurther include tracking responses to the users of the e-Commercesystem.

As with any system, a support, administration, and maintenance facilityand procedures need to be put in place to remain operational as well asefficient. In general, packaged implementations will only provideminimal maintenance and administration facilities leaving the bulk ofthe burden to the integrator. The underlying technology for thefacilities may be basic batch download/uploads, simple server processesand applications or even browser based. It is important to understandthe system administration and maintenance needs, develop a plan, andstick with it. Some of the areas to consider are listed below. FIG. 25illustrates high-level concepts of maintenance and administration of theframework.

System Monitoring Facilities 2500

The health of a system can be easily maintained by putting in placemonitoring facilities and procedures for capturing the system'selectronic vital signs. Far too often the users of a system are thefirst to know of system problems while the administrators are the lastto know. This can be prevented by creating automated monitoringfacilities for server processes, disk space, memory, CPU utilization,access time, number of connections, and other electronic vital signs.The complexity of these facilities is open for debate. In addition toonline monitoring facilities, robust logging, audit trails, andarchiving capabilities should be included. These will aid in analysisand forecasting of system needs.

System Administration

The term system administration is a vague term used to categorize theactions needed to support a system. This may include starting, stopping,or restarting servers or processes, scheduling backups and loads ofdatabases or files, recovery procedures or anything else needed tomaintain the system. Traditional system administration also includesupdates to system software, packages, and operating systems. Listedbelow are additional system administration considerations an eCommercesystem may encounter.

Merchandise Administration 2502

The merchandising aspect may introduce additional administration andmaintenance. Procedures should be put in place to handle sold outmerchandise and back order items. Updating merchandising content,currency, tax, and pricing may need to be performed on a regular basis.The merchandise administration facility should be able to handle pricingand discount items and have the ability to allow automatic updating andmanual override capabilities for authorized administrators.

Personalization Maintenance Facility 2504

The biggest challenges in personalization are determining matching rulesfor the business's market plans, categorization of the profiles,gathering profile information, and then developing robust content withadequate content indexing. Once these have been established, they shouldbe easily maintained. When designing the personalization services,maintenance of the rules and content should be considered. The peoplemost likely driving this information will not be technology oriented,and may require simple interfaces for altering rules for marketing,advertising, or other personalized content.

Content Administration

As content is added, this information will need to be indexed andintegrated with the search technology implemented at the site. Otheritems such as customer service chat discussions or review would alsoneed to be purged on a regular basis.

Data Administration 2506

Many times, utilizing packages to implement an eCommerce solution willintroduce a proprietary data model for customer and product information.In order to make this information accessible to the rest of theorganization, the information will need to be synchronized with theenterprise data. Services may be required to determine changes andsynchronize the data. This would be true for any information the sitegathers not integrated into the enterprise data.

Load Balancing

In addition to the monitoring and maintenance facilities, servicesshould be considered to stabilize performance. Providing the system isscalable, load balancing services would aid in initiating and stoppingextra processes as utilization levels vary. Processes could be startedto handle additional requests during peek periods providing the userwith a consistent level of performance. This is extremely important inperiods of peak usage. A good example is the fluctuation of the averageresponse times of some of the current electronic trading systems duringmarket surges. Times during a market surge were 2-3 minutes above theiraverage 6-10 second response time.

Contact Maintenance 2508

Internet users are quick to point out mistakes and opinions forimprovements. Sites will receive sporadic emails from users experiencinga variety of emotions about the site. Users may sour quickly if actionsare not taken or noted to items pointed out. Responses to user feedbackshould be monitored to ensure that each message from a user is respondedto in some manner.

Maintenance and Administration of the system is often wrongfullyoverlooked. It is a key component in improving customer satisfaction andbuilding customer relationships. Having robust maintenance andadministration facilities should increase the system's overall stabilityby reducing the time and cost to identify and fix issues, automatingprocesses, and enabling system administers.

Implementation Considerations

Information Staging

The ability to deliver new products and information may be critical tostay ahead or match the competition. The speed at which the informationcan be updated and migrated to production is critical. Be sure tounderstand the relationship between the content changes and the correctprocedures to migrate the changes to the production system. The abilityto maintain and grow the site may prove to be key factors in the site'ssuccess.

In most cases, a content staging process should be put in place. In thesimplest format, the procedures for modifying and adding content,testing, validation of content and subject matter, authorization andmigration to production should be documented.

Order Processing 1010

FIG. 26 illustrates the Order Processing portion 1010 of the eCommerceApplication Framework 1000. Subsections include Merchandise Selection2600, Check Out 2602, Payment 2604, and Fulfillment 2606.

FIG. 27 illustrates a flowchart for a method 2700 for completing atransaction over a network. Information is displayed information about aproduct for sale in operation 2702. Upon receiving an order for purchaseof the product in operation 2704, a price of the product for sale isdynamically generated in operation 2706 based on the actual price of theproduct and discounts, taxes, fulfillment costs and/or delivery costs.Save and recall of the product and price of the order are also allowedin operation 2708. A method of payment is determined in operation 2710.When payment is received, the order is fulfilled (see operations 2712and 27 14).

A medium for receiving the payment may be via credit based payment,debit based payment, and/or electronic cash. Additionally, verificationof export restrictions with respect to a selected product may also beallowed.

As an option, the ability to review, update, and cancel the order at anytime may be allowed. As another option, electronic rights may also bemanaged. In even a further option, order tracking information about astatus of the order may also be provided.

Allowing customers the ability to not just browse and interact butcomplete the purchased is crucial for a successful eCommerce solution.This section includes many of the capabilities needed to negotiate andperform the entire transaction. The transaction begins when the usertakes action to purchase the item(s). From a seller-centric view, thetransaction is initiated once the ‘purchase’ button is selected. The‘buy transaction’ may include sub-transactions such as totaling, paymentselection, inventory management and purchase authorization.

It is important to recognize some commerce packages specialize in thetransaction processing portion of an eCommerce solution. For example,Open Market's OM-Transact, does not provide a catalog interface or anyof the infrastructure for interaction with the potential customer.Instead, it will provide an interface for communicating with itstransactional infrastructure.

Each implementation will require specific flow and business logic. Thecommerce packages available today provide generic order processingbusiness capabilities that will need to be customized to achieve thespecific needs of the business. Illustrated in FIG. 28 is an exampleflow of business capabilities needed for complete order processing on aneCommerce implementation. The process begins with operation 2800 whichallows browsing and interacting in order to permit selection ofmerchandise in operation 2802. The process ends in operation 2804 withsettlement.

Merchandise Selection 2600

Some sort of merchandise collection facility is needed. All items ofinterest should be gathered and organized so they can be reviewed priorto purchase. The most common approaches are an order form or a metaphorsuch as a shopping cart or basket.

Shopping Cart Metaphor—The user is enabled to select items and add themto his online shopping cart. The items selected will be tracked. Theuser has the ability to add or remove items, review item details, andcheck out and total the items. In addition, the shopping cart shouldallow the user to exit and reenter the store without losing the items hehas selected.

Independent of the medium, the following capabilities should beconsidered:

Order list and information should be consistent with the merchandisingmechanism. If possible, display the merchandise in the same format so itis as appealing as when they order it.

The customer should be able to save and recall items, pricing, and otherorder details for the current and previous orders.

Allow for additional sales and impulse buying. The checkout process isideal for cross selling or any other form of impulse buying. Thesecapabilities should be integrated to the merchandise selection facility.

Allow for the ability to review, update or even cancel the order at anypoint of the selection purchasing flow. The customer should not feelconfined or forced to make the purchase.

Check Out 2602

The check out phase begins once the user has decided to purchase ororder the items gathered. A variety of capabilities may be required ormay affect this process. Listed below are some of the services toconsider during the check out processing.

Price Verification

Given the geographically independent environment and multitude ofpotential customer relationships, many factors may affect the actualpricing. The first step in the transaction is determining the price. Theprice in most cases will be dynamically generated based on the actualprice of the items, taxes, fulfillment or delivery costs, and any otheritem affecting the price. Ideally, product prices, shipping and handlingcharges and other charges should be maintained separately. Thisfunctionality should include the ability to handle tax-exempt customersand transactions. Sales tax and value added tax logging and auditingcapabilities should also be included.

Discounting

In general, pricing is calculated dynamically. Discounts may be appliedfor many reasons either to specific items or to the entire order.Additional discounts may be given for using a preferred paymentmechanism. Other implementations may provide discounts at the end ofmonth based on total sales.

Taxes and Tariffs

The tax issues related to the buying and selling of tangible personalproperty or services through the Internet, are numerous and complex.Questions include what products and services are subject to tax, whenand where to impose a tax on the retail transaction, and what tax (salesor use) the merchant is required to collect. Tax calculation functionswith an integrated sales tax or value-added tax (VAT) engine, able toperform real-time calculations based on customer-specified productcodes, order point of origin, shipper's address or recipient's addressshould be considered.

Due to these complexities, most solutions interface with a tax engine toreduce the risk and legalities involved with taxes. Most of the commercepackages available today interface with the leading tax engines.

Shipping Charges

Shipping charges may be applicable for items not fulfilled directly bythe site. In some cases, the customer's shipping location may be used todetermine their taxes and shipping charges. There are a variety ofmechanisms for determining shipping charges. They include:

Price Threshold—Shipping charges will vary according to set price tiers.

Weight—Shipping charges may be determined based on gross shippingweight.

Quantity—Charges may vary dependent on the quantity of items ordered.Items may be free up to a given number or shipping may be free after agiven quantity.

Line Item—Designating a specific shipping charge for each line item onthe order.

Order Information

Other basic order information may be gathered during the check outprocessing. The most common method is an order form. The form should beeasily customizable and may contain a variety of information.

Order Form Standard online form with the usual questions: Name, Address,shipping location, credit card number, email address, etc. The userusually has the ability to submit or decline the order at this point.Submitted orders should be encrypted automatically by the commerceserver.

Customer Information Establishing Customer Location.) If the basiccustomer information has not been gathered earlier in the process, itshould be gathered before the payment phase. For some implementations,customers may wish to remain anonymous, but this is rare.

Shipping/Billing Address Applications should be capable of supportingship-to addresses independent of and different from the bill-to address.This allows billing for a product or service to be sent to one location,and the actual product to be delivered to another.

Automated Inventory Management. In some cases, trading partners may setup Automatic Ordering based on usage or schedule. If inventory is usedon a regular basis, the re-ordering process may be automated.

Order Validation Inventory checks and verification of exportrestrictions can be done before the order is placed. Depending on whenand how the information is gathered this may be done anywhere along theprocess flow or as a background event concurrent with the otherprocesses.

Purchase Order Creation If the commerce implementation integrates withan existing system, it may need to generate unique purchase orders.Services to integrate and manage this functionality may be required.

Determine Payment Mechanism Interaction with the user may be requiredfor determining the payment mechanism. Research is currently underway todetermine if this may also be automated.

Payment 2604

After a total has been established, a payment method must be determined.A variety of mediums can handle the transfer of money. The methods,flow, technology, and potentially messaging, will vary byimplementation. Issues concerning security, liability, and relationshipto fulfillment need to be worked out.

Listed below are some considerations for determining the payment flowand mediums to be utilized.

Anonymity. If there is a need to allow the users to remain anonymous, ananonymous medium may need to be implemented. Implementations such as asilent bidding site may require strict standards and mediums foranonymity. In general, anonymity is not a concern for mostimplementations.

Monetary Transaction Size. If the site will be handling very small orvery large monetary transactions additional considerations will berequired. Sites accepting micro value transactions will need to plan aprocess to collect and verify the payment. To make low-valuetransactions cost effective, solutions may sacrifice security. In someimplementations, it is assumed “some” fraud will occur but in such smalldenominations as to be negligible.

Transaction Cost. Depending on the payment method, there are numerouspotential associated costs. Most mediums have either transaction costsor may involve a broker requiring additional fees. Understanding thecosts associated is important when planning an efficient payment system.

Audit Trail. Some implementations may record each transaction with aunique identifier used to track finds if necessary.

Security. In the past, eCommerce has been hampered by the absence ofsecure and robust transaction options. Recent development of secureonline payment options over the Internet have been a primary enabler.Strongly-encrypted online purchase transaction protocols have beendeveloped and integrated into software for consumers, merchants, andbanks to enable secure credit card transactions.

Consumer Type. The types of flow and payment medium will vary greatlydepending on the consumer or purchaser. B-C implementations requirepayment (or at least authorization) once the order is placed. For thebuyer-centric, trading partner relationship, the establishedinfrastructure may handle payments using traditional invoicing or anInternet-enabled form of EDI or EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).

Electronic Authentication. Some sort of digital signature strategy wouldneed to be in place between trading partners and potentially thefinancial institution.

Message Standards. Payment instructions must be recognizable to allparties involved.

Payment Methods

There are a multitude of different vendors and technologies availablefor handling electronic payments. The infrastructure, process, andtechnology may vary dramatically from vendor to vendor. The actualmediums for the current payment options fall into these categories:

Credit-Based Payment. Today, the most widely-used electronic paymentoption is the credit card. With the new transaction protocols andsecurity features, credit cards can be used on the Internet just as theyare in the real world. Consumer confidence is higher with the alreadyfamiliar standard. Current overhead for clearing, settlement and fraudmakes credit card based solutions uneconomical for transactions of smalldollar amounts.

Debit-Based Payment. Payment utilizing this method will directly debitand credit accounts. These may take the form of debit cards, electronicchecks or messages utilizing EDI or EFT.

Electronic Cash. Electronic cash is the electronic equivalent of realpaper cash. It is usually implemented using public-key cryptography,digital signatures and blind signatures. Electronic cash is “digital”money on the computer's hard disk. Theoretically, the money could bespent in very small increments, such as tenths of a cent (U.S.) or less.In an electronic cash system there is usually a bank, responsible forissuing currency, consumers that obtain cash from either banks orbrokers and merchants who will accept the digital cash for goods andservices. In short, the bank, merchant and consumer each own a publicand private key which is used to encrypt and digitally sign theelectronic cash.

Smartcards. A smartcard is a programmable storage device the same insize and appearance as a normal credit card. It contains a microchip tostore and process information. Some of these cards can contain storedvalue in the form of digital coins. A lost card means lost value, justlike cash. The person holding the card can spend the value stored on itat any merchant accepting smartcards. This technology is particularlyuseful for online shopping, and is far less vulnerable than systemsstoring value on a hard disk. Transaction costs for this form of paymentare very low, enabling the user to conduct micro-transactions of onepenny or less. Microsoft and several computer manufacturers are pushingfor standards to incorporate smartcard readers into PC keyboards, andmost TV set-top Internet access devices already have them

Digital Wallets. Digital wallet software facilitates secure, onlinetransactions between the consumer and the merchant, and between themerchant and the bank. For the consumer, there will soon be literallyhundreds of software “digital wallets” available. They will likely befree and similar in function, running within a web browser.

Payment Authorization. In many cases, consumer sites which implement acredit card payment method will require payment authorization. In somecases the actual settlement process can not occur until the items areshipped.

JEPI, being developed by W3C and CommerceNet in cooperation with manylarge technology companies, is a standard mechanism for Web clients andservers to find out what payment capabilities they have in common, andnegotiate the payment instrument, protocol, and transport between oneanother. This will be transparent to the user; they will simply be toldby the wallet software what payment options are available at thismerchant (along with any available discounts for payment type ormembership affiliations), and asked to choose.

Fulfillment 2606

The fulfillment process can be complex and will vary depending on thetype of goods being delivered. Integration to existing systems as wellas communication of invoices and orders to distributors or tradingpartners will play an important role.

A tremendous amount of communication and back end processing will beneeded. Often implementing an eCommerce environment opens the doors toreview the underlying systems and processes. Potential areas includewarehouse notifications and P.O. delivery. Print, fax, or sneaker netsystems may be upgraded to EDI, email, or another electronic medium.Updating and improving these processes will be critical for providingcustomer support. Users will come to expect the ability to see theprogress of their order as it moves from the site to warehouse to theirdesktop.

Electronic Distribution

Soft goods may take the form of information, software, graphics, musicor any other digital content. Many traditional content providers haveimported their content to the Internet. Although the revenue generationis less than what they achieve through their traditional channels ofdistribution, publishers and other entertainment providers have foundthe Internet offers a richer, more interactive environment to presenttheir content. The Internet provides consumers the ability to search,evaluate, transact and personalize the content. The Internet willcontinue to be adopted as an effective distribution channel.

Site Subscription

A very simplistic form of soft goods fulfillment may be achieved byallowing the user access to the site. Functions to handle permissionsand access would be required to prevent unauthorized users or actions.

A site subscription may be based on different metering technologies.Internet metering technologies can be divided into two categories:observational metering and usage metering. Observation metering measuressite activity while usage metering measures the usage of items such asfiles, bytes or time.

Electronic Rights Management

Owners of digital content, including authors and publishers, have beensearching for a method to protect against the unauthorized distributionof their works over the Internet. Most content available on the Internettoday is freely distributed, often without consideration of the contentowner's copyrights and appropriate royalties. Protecting Web content isa difficult task. Items such as copyrighted words, images and other‘digital’ objects need to be protected from unauthorized (and endless)duplication. Currently, copyright notices can easily be stripped away.There are a few recent developments aimed at tracking rights violations.

Some rights management methods are geared toward identifying legal andillegal uses of a document or digital object. These concepts stillrequire actively searching the Web for signs of abuse. In essence, themethods still allow the content to be extracted and used, basing themajority of the security on trust. Other approaches place a ‘securitywrapper’ around the content so it can only be accessed by authorizedusers.

Digital Watermark—The most common method is to add a digital‘watermarks’. The watermark is embedded in the background of the imagewithout changing the overall appearance of the image. An agent,sometimes called a ‘spider’ because of the way it crawls the web, can beused to scan the Internet for the presence of the image or identifierand report unauthorized URL's. The watermark will stay with the image,even if it is downloaded.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)—This method would associate a uniqueidentifier with the digital content. The identifier would be permanentlyassociated and could potentially be as low level as a paragraph. The DOIconcept is only a building block and would still need to be incorporatedinto a rights management system.

Digital Fingerprints—A digital fingerprint is an invisible record of who“touched” an electronic document. Services would be needed to determinewho first misused the document (such as by improperly copying ordistributing it). Fingerprinting electronic documents iscontent-dependent and is easiest for document types with a large numberof bits.

Secure Packaging—This concept prevents the use of the information byplacing the item in a logical security envelope. The user may gainaccess to the information based on the requirements of the securityenvelope. The security will allow the user to see the abstract, price,rules for use, and other pertinent information. Upon agreement ofpayment and/or rules by the end user, the user will obtain a key tounlock the document contained within the security envelope.

Customer Services 1012

FIG. 29 illustrates a flowchart for a method 2900 for electronicallyserving a customer over a network. An ability to search for informationon the network is provided via a site in operation 2902. Order trackinginformation for tracking an order is displayed via the site in operation2904. Return of a product is allowed via the site with a purchase pricerefunded to a customer in operation 2906. A training application programis executed in operation 2908 for training a customer in use of the siteover the network. Interaction with the customer occurs in real-time viathe site by allowing the customer to communicate with a customer servicerepresentative over the network in operation 2910.

The information capable of being searched may include productinformation and also a status of the order. Also, the customer maycommunicate with the customer service representative by way of a chatroom.

As an option, the purchase history information may also be compiled anddisplayed. As another option, information including policy documentationmay also be provided. As an additional option, an on-line bulletin boardmay be provided for allowing input from a plurality of customers.

This category includes any component of the solution meeting a user'sneed normally filled by a human customer service representative. Theseservices fall across the marketing, merchandising, order processing, andother categories. The customer service aspect of eCommerce is asimportant as selling the actual products. Just as in the world of thepaper bill, a lack of customer service, or poor customer service, candestroy any relationship the user has established with the electronicbusiness.

The business drivers for customer service are:

increased customer satisfaction

reduction of support personnel

increased functionality

timely information and service

Conducting commerce on the Internet means allowing direct access to thesystem and its data. New users may have a much lower tolerance for hardto understand interfaces and site layout and may require considerablehelp understanding what information exists on the site and how to findit. Customer service will continue to be a key component in maintainingcustomer relationships.

There are a variety of different services to enhance customer service.Which services should be implemented are dependent on the goals andcharacteristics of the site. Below are listed the key customer services,which are also found in FIG. 30.

Site Search 3000

Search engines have become a popular component of anyinformation-intensive site. The ability to lead a user to the type ofinformation he is looking for will not only make the interaction moreefficient but enhance the customer relationships. “Search” is a genericterm and may be used for searching for a specific product or may beimplemented to search for a specific customer's order or otherinformation.

Order Tracking (Order Management) 3002

Providing customers the ability to track their orders can providetremendous benefits in reduction of support personnel and buildingcustomer relationships. Applications of this nature can range fromsimple to complex depending on the level of detail. The order trackingsystem should be integrated within the order processing's innateworkflow system. Purchase history functions may also be provided.

Return Merchandise/Credit 3004

If the site sells goods, there is always the possibility of the customerreturning the merchandise. As with most exception processing, this cancreate numerous problems, though the return should be allowed. Actuallycrediting a smartcard or replacing digital currency may be verydifficult. The legalities and procedures should be thought out anddocumentation provided.

Help & Information 3006 and Troubleshooting 3008

There is a tremendous amount of help and information features a site mayprovide. Listed below are some of the more common examples.

Policy Documents—Documentation stating the policies of the site. In somecases this is required for legal reasons. In general it is important tolayout the site's policies and procedures.

Email/Comments/Contact Merchant—Providing mechanisms where the user caneasily contact the site is a good practice. Valuable input and commentscan be gained from the actual users. Some implementations may allowusers to rate site content. This functionality can be thought of as avirtual suggestion box.

Online Help and Training (Site navigation)—Whether the site is Intranetor Internet, the users should have the ability to gain help onnavigation and usage of the site. In more robust cases, interactivetraining may be offered if it will improve site performance andutilization.

Store Locator—Many customers may use a site for pricing and productresearch and may not be comfortable purchasing items over an electronicmedium. If the site has brick and mortar store locations, provide afacility for the tentative consumer to find them.

Trouble Help Desk—Most help desk functions can be provided through a website. These services can range from simple documents, such as troubleshouting guides and FAQs, to complex applications.

Collaboration Services

Behind security, one of the leading reasons a customer will not‘transact’ online is the lack of human contact. Although unbelievable tomost technologists, there is still an underlying fear of computershidden in a large percentage of the potential consumer base. Currently,most seller-centric sites do not provide a truly two-way, interactive,or collaborative environment. The site may have a complex form ofpersonalization which will filter and deliver content geared to thespecific user, but in most cases will not provide real-time customerinteraction. Interaction may be delivered in the following methods:

Customer Service Chat—Service provided to interact directly with thecustomers through the site. In the simplest form this may be a realtime, textual chat function letting hesitant shoppers ask questions toeither a service or sales representative. Technology and bandwidthconsiderations would have to be reviewed before audio or video typesolutions could be considered.

Community—An online community of interest for customers. The purpose ofa community is to build an interest in the site so the customers willreturn simply to interact and gain information (and potentially purchaseitems). This may include additional information about the products orindustry not normally included in the traditional merchandisingapproach.

For additional detail on collaboration services, please refer to theCollaboration Delivery Vehicle in DAF, found above.

Security 1014

FIG. 31 illustrates the Security component 1014 of the eCommerceApplication Framework in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention. Its various subcomponents are discussed below.

FIG. 32 illustrates a flowchart for a method 3200 for ensuring securityof an e-Commerce system on a network. In operation 3202, a messagedigest is attached to data prior to a transmission for determiningwhether the data was modified after being sent by a user. The data isalso encrypted in operation 3204 for preventing unauthorized access tothe data during the transmission. Authentication information is sentwith the data in the transmission for verifying an identity of the userin operation 3206. A client environment is secured by usingauthorization models to determine which entities can access specificapplications, data, and resources on a client in operation 3208. Aserver environment is secured by implementing a firewall in operation3210.

The message digest may include a log of times when modifications to thedata occurred. The authentication information may also include a digitalsignature. In addition, the authentication information may furtherinclude a certification. Further, the certification may include a useridentifier, a service identifier, a public key which is used to verifythe digital signature, a name of an issuer of the certification, aperiod which the certification is valid, and an email address.

In the last few years, computer crimes have exploded—hackers havedefaced the web site of the CIA, stolen information and software fromNASA and the Pentagon, and made unauthorized wire transfers causingbanks to lose millions. According to WarRoom Research, financial lossesfrom computer crime run at $10 billion a year. Historically, 80% ofsecurity problems have been internal ones—either from employeesexceeding their level of authorization or ones that are disgruntled.Netcentric computing and eCommerce are increasing the risks due torapidly evolving technology infrastructures. As access to corporatesystems is extended virtually and new security holes are discovereddaily, security issues become complex. eCommerce, while providingimmense potential business advantages, may also expose businesses tosignificant risks. If their systems are broken into, they are at risk tofinancial loss, embarrassment, lost customers, and potential legalliability. Businesses often hesitate to take advantage of eCommercebecause they fear security problems. Although security technologies arecontinually evolving to mitigate these eCommerce security risks,security breeches occur because businesses fail to implement anappropriate mixture of security solutions.

The problems associated with connecting the network to the vast Internetare widely published. Hackers abound, and new methods for compromisingnetworks are published almost daily. However, what about connecting thenetwork to a partner for project collaboration, or perhaps a supplierfor automatic inventory control? One might trust their supplier,however, does one really know how well their network is secured?Contracts and Service Levels can and should deal with many of theseissues, however, technology can also be used to enforce securitypolicies.

Once the correct mixture of security solutions has been implemented, thecompany will experience many benefits besides peace of mind that theirsite is secure. Security also allows people to conduct businessfunctions over the Internet which previously could only be done inperson or with a more private connection. This allows expansion into newmarkets and new business capabilities, increases efficiency, and reducesthe cost of doing business. For example, in the typical electronicstorefront scenario, security is enabling an unknown buyer and seller toexchange goods with a reasonable assurance that the transaction will behonored on both ends. Security can also be a selling point for acompany's eCommerce services. By demonstrating an increased level oftrust and reduced exposure to fraud, a customer may choose onemerchant's services over another's. Furthermore, eCommerce technologiesrely on electronic automated security rather than imprecise proceduralsecurity. This can result in more reliable processing and fewer errors.

Unless customers and users feel the system is secure and there is littleto no risk involved with using the system, the implementation will notbe successful.

Depending on the system, the amount of security in the differentsecurity areas will vary. By securing all aspects of the site, it willmake it extremely difficult for an intruder to work their way into thesystem without being detected. There are a number of differentapproaches which can be employed to provide system security. Among themost common, are firewalling, encryption, and authentication. Eachprovides a particular type and degree of security, and in many instancesit makes sense to use multiple technologies together to achieve thedesired result. Security must be built into a system extremely carefullyin order to be effective.

The details of security in eCommerce will be discussed in terms of fiveeCommerce cross-component application types. The five application typesdiscussed are:

Advertise Product Online

Collaboration

Interactive Customer Service

Internet Home Banking

Online Storefront/Product Sales

FIGS. 33-42 illustrate these five application types. The Figures aregrouped in consecutive pairs in which a sample architecture will beshown in a first Figure and the following Figure will be a securityarchitecture that may or may not be created by modifying the immediatelyprevious sample architecture. The organization of the pairs of Figuresis as follows: FIGS. 33-34, 35-36, 37-38, 39-40, 41-42.

Secure Communication 3100

Visa® and MasterCard® have jointly developed the Secure ElectronicTransaction (SET) protocol to allow secure, cost-effective bank-cardtransactions over open networks. SET includes facilities for:

Purchasing goods and services electronically

Requesting payment authorization

Requesting certificates for authentication

Consumers get their encryption keys using a specific program integratedinto their browser. This program automatically converts a consumer'scredit card number into a certificate given by Visa or MasterCard. Thiscertificate contains a key and will be attached permanently to thebrowser of the consumer.

Then, for every transaction the consumer asks the merchant to send hiscertificate, and the merchant can ask the consumer's bank forauthentication with the customer's certificate.

Full implementation of SET requires certificates be issued for eachcredit card a consumer wishes to use on the Internet. This raisesenormous administrative challenges, as well as the problems involved inachieving this level of universal adoption.

Secure Environment 3102

There are different technical approaches for Internet security. The endgoal of the security technologies is the same. It is important to payattention to the approach and questions that they try to answer. Forexample Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Secure HTTP (SHTTP) have beenviewed as competing technology. SSL uses the TCPI/IP protocol to providetransaction security at the transport level. Security properties arelinked to the channel of communication between the two parties. Theissue they are addressing is channel privacy for a conversation ortransaction. SHTTP provides transaction security at the document level.Each document is designated as private by the sender. This approach isaddressing the question of authentication and authorization of webtransactions.

Secure Data 3104

The first area to secure is data. It has to be ensured information isprotected from unauthorized access. This is mostly important whensensitive data, such as credit card numbers or business figures, aretransmitted. Data usually passes a long way before reaching its finaldestination and can easily be read by a third party. Data, therefore,has to be encrypted before transmission. Today several encryptiontechniques are used which ensure the data is unusable if intercepted.

In addition to encrypting the data, the parties involved in anelectronic transaction need to know that the data received or sent issecure. Authentication techniques require the identities of the senderand receiver are known and the information sent arrives unaltered.Authentication can be accomplished with both the use of a message digestand a digital signature. Details on some of these techniques arediscussed below.

Cryptography

Cryptography is an essential component in securing data. In the mostbasic sense, cryptography is encrypting and decrypting data using analgorithm(s) or key of some sort. Encrypted data is useless without thekey to decrypt it.

Today several encryption standards exist utilizing a wide variety ofalgorithms and keys. Details on some of the different methods can befound in the Security for Internet Electronic Commerce SecurityTechnology Handbook.

Message Digest

A message digest is used to make sure no one has altered the messagebetween transmission and reception. It is used to providedata-integrity. A digest is associated with a sent message. Therecipient can re-compute the digest and compare the new one with thesent one. If they match, the message has not been tampered duringtransmission. The algorithm used to compute digest must be the same forthe sender and the recipient. A message digest is a short, fixed-lengthdigital code derived in a one-way fashion from a longer variable-lengthmessage. As a result, it is impossible to determine the original messageon the basis of the digest or to find a different message with the samedigest.

Digital Signature

Digital signatures ensure the message recipient only the sender of themessage could have sent it. The sender signs a message by encrypting adigest of the message with their private key. No one but the particularsender could have generated the digest corresponding to the message.This provides authentication of the sender as well as non-repudiation ofthe origin. Encrypting a message digest also links the signature withthe message content. The sender can't claim they did not send themessage or the message is not the one they sent.

Certification

Some security techniques may require the use of a public key forencrypting data. When using a public keys, issues may arise with keymanagement and verification. Often a trusted third party will be neededto issue a Certification Authority (CA) for keys and signatures.Certification Authority declares which public key and signatures belongsto which users and services. Because a user needs the CA public key tocheck validity of certificates, CA must provide a way to safely deliverits own public key.

A certificate typically contains:

User and service identifier

Actual public keys

A public key, which can be used to verify the digital signature of amessage sender

The name of the issuer, or Certification Authority

The certificate's validity period

Other identifying information such as email address

Secure Client Environment 3106

The client environment should also be secured. Since systems may be opento public use, and accessible to a large audience, it could be subjectto new types of attacks. An environment must have security mechanisms inplace to control who can access it as well as controls on the actionsthese users may perform. This maybe achieved using authorization models.Authorization models are used to determine which entities (for example,people or applications) can access specific applications, data, orresources.

With the onset on Netcentric computing, entire applications or otherforms of executable content may be downloaded across a network. Thisstyle of computing introduces a variety of security concerns. Downloadsmay come in the form of applications, applets, ActiveX controls, scriptsand a variety of other software. It is important to understand thedifferent security concerns with the downloads.

Java Applets

Java is designed for developing programs to run on many different kindsof computers connected together in a network. A Java Applet is a specialkind of Java program attached to a Web page. Applets are embedded into aWeb page's HTML definition and interpreted by Java-enabled browser. Itis possible to have users download the applet from the Web and run theprogram locally.

Running some unknown person's untrusted code is also inherentlydangerous. For this reason, Java restricts the behavior of Applets to aset of safe actions (Safe applets are labeled as trusted applets). TheJava security model restricts an Applet as follows:

Applets cannot make direct system calls

Applets are forbidden to:

1. access the file system

2. open sockets (except on the originating server)

3. interfere with other applets

4. spy on the local environment

Because of its built-in security model, Java addresses these riskshead-on. Unfortunately, there are still holes in Java's security modelwhich allow some risks. For example, applets could be created to performvarious harmful acts:

Denial of service; This kind of hostile applet takes all the availablesystem resources of the user's machine

Invasion of privacy; These Applets can publicize private information.

Annoyance; These types of Applets play sound files, display graphics, orcreate endless windows.

ActiveX

ActiveX is a technology developed by the Microsoft Corporation fordistributing software over the Internet. Like Java Applets, an ActiveX“control” can be embedded in a Web page, where it typically appears as asmart interactive graphic. Unlike Java, which is a platform-independentprogramming language, ActiveX controls are distributed as executablebinaries, and must be separately compiled for each target machine andoperating system.

The ActiveX security model is considerably different from Java Applets.ActiveX places no restrictions on what a control can do. Instead, eachActiveX control can be digitally “signed” by its author in such a waythat the signature cannot be altered or repudiated. The digitalsignatures can then be certified by a trusted “certifying authority”,such as VeriSign, to create the equivalent of a shrink-wrapped softwarepackage. If downloading a signed ActiveX control causes a machine tocrash, the responsible party will be identifiable.

This security model places the responsibility for the computer system'ssecurity on the user. Before the browser downloads an ActiveX controlthat has not been signed at all, or has been signed but certified by anunknown certifying authority, the browser presents a dialog box warningthe user this action may not be safe. The user can abort the transfer,or may continue the transfer and take his chances.

Scripting Languages

Internet scripting languages are programming languages embedded in HTMLpages and are interpreted by the user's browser (for example, NetscapeNavigator or Microsoft Explorer). Typically, they are dedicated tocontrol the user's interaction with an HTML document, for example when:

Processing mouse events

Opening new windows

Checking forms

Interacting with other active content

As scripts are pieces of code from a foreign source executed on the usersystem, they raise security issues. Indeed, a user must be sure adownloaded script will not perform malicious actions against his system.Scripting languages designers have to manage the balance betweensecurity achieved through restriction, and language capabilities.

Secure Server Environment 3108

Securing the server environment will depend upon the technology andarchitecture of the implementation. Techniques and security models existfor the different methods of server-side computing. Included below isbasic security information for some of the different technologies.

Internet Firewall

A firewall is used to protect a trusted network from an untrustednetwork. Typically, the two networks in question are an organization'sinternal network (trusted) and the Internet (untrusted). A firewall is asystem or group of systems that enforces an access control policybetween two networks. A firewall is a collection of components or asystem placed between two networks and possesses the followingproperties:

All traffic from inside to outside, and vice-versa, must pass throughit;

Only authorized traffic, as defined by the local security policy, isallowed to pass through it;

The system itself is immune to penetration.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts are a way of processinginformation submitted to the web server using a form. A CGI script canbe written in any language able to use standard IN and OUT streams(usually Perl or C shell). To process a form, the client first submitsthe information content to the server. On the server, a CGI script readsthe form contents, then uses it to write a new HTML page, which is sentback from the server to the client. Security problems with CGI scriptsoccur on both the client and the server sides.

CGI Client Side

Submitting a form to a CGI script, which is located on a server, impliesthe sending of the contents of this form over the Network. If thechannel used is not safe, form content can easily be read and perverted.Any way of securing the channel, such as SSL, PCT, or S-HTTP, can beused to achieve confidentiality of submitted information. As theseprotocols must be implemented by both client and server, a user mustcheck the server is able to secure the channel. Current popular browsersare able to warn the user if information is being submitted in an unsafefashion.

CGI Server Side

Processing a form on the server, using server resources, such as systemcommands, can lead to security holes. Indeed, forms can be fall ofmalicious content causing the server to perform confidential informationdelivery, server crashes, or unauthorized accesses.

The only way to protect a server from attacks through CGI script is tobe very careful when writing, testing, and using CGI scripts. As far aspossible, CGI scripts should avoid executing system commands. Eachsubmitting entry should be checked and analyzed before being processed.Script sources must be hidden as analyzing the source of a script is thebest way to find an efficient attack through it. On multiple usersystems, the right to install CGI scripts should only be granted to theadministrator or trustworthy users.

Common Object Request Broker (CORBA)

The Common Object Request Broker architecture is an open distributedobject computing infrastructure standardized by the Object ManagementGroup. CORBA specifies the interfaces, structures and policies used bydistributed objects (components) to communicate independently of thelanguage, operating systems, machine, or network.

The CORBA 2.0 specification presents a good set of security policieswhich provide authentication, data integrity, confidentiality andnon-repudiation. The standard leaves to the applications the problem ofhandling the non-repudiation policies without conforming to the ISOspecifications. The standard does not thoroughly solve the problem ofinteroperability between different security domains.

Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM)

The Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) provides a model based onObject Technology, to manage inter-process communication on a localcomputer. Microsoft's Distributed Component Object Model is an extensionof COM, supporting the distribution of collaborative processes over anetwork.

Security issues in DCOM concern:

Security for communication; Inter-process communication messages aresent on potentially unsecured networks like the Internet.

System administration considerations; Using a DCOM-aware applicationinvolves the possibility for a user to manage processes on otherssystems. This must not conflict with the user's rights on each system.

Remote Method Invocation (RMI)

The Remote Method Invocation allows a programmer to create distributedJava-to-Java applications. This allows remote Java objects to be invokedfrom other Java virtual machines, even those on different hosts. A Javaprogram can call a remote object only when it has obtained a referenceto that remote object. This can be done by:

Searching for the remote object using the bootstrap naming serviceprovided by RMI.

Receiving the reference as an argument or a return value.

A client can call a remote object on a server, and that server can alsoact as a client when calling other remote objects. As RMI both impliesexecution of foreign code and communication over a network, deployingRMI requires a secured environment and secured communication.

The RMI specification does not define any security features fordistributed transactions. In order to secure the transfer of informationbetween hosts located in different address spaces, some securityfeatures need to be added to the specification.

Advertise Products Online

In the sample architecture shown in FIG. 33, a potential customer 3300will access a corporate web site for some sales information. This is aninformation source only, no transactions (exchanges of value) can beperformed. Internet users will surf to the advertising site, and clickon various links within the page to get more information on particularproducts. The web server can make requests from the application serverto serve dynamic pages to the user. The application server can pullinformation from the database if detailed product information isrequested. Site administrators develop content on the development serverand test it on the staging server.

Functional Description

1. Customer launches a web browser and goes to the retail venue's website

2. With a cookie, the retailer's application server 3302 can identifythe customer and choose a merchant to display on the front page. Inaddition it can tailor the merchant's interactive catalog of products tohighlight those products which would be of interest to the customer

3. Customer selects items and gets a detailed description of the itemincluding its price and nearest store location or a phone number toorder online.

Security Business Priorities

Preventing the web site from being vandalized

Assuring the web site is available to potential customers at all times

Public perception that the company and web site is providing proper andeffective security

An exemplary security architecture is illustrated in FIG. 34. Thisarchitecture is superior to the architecture of FIG. 33.

Security Technical Description

Encryption services are not implemented in this architecture because noconfidential information is sent between the customer 3400 and the website.

Authentication services are provided at the company's web server 3402with a server side certificate 3404 signed by a leading CA provider.Customers are not authenticated. Internal users (i.e. administrators)are authenticated with their NT domain logon.

Access control is provided by a firewall 3406 at the entry point intothe company's internal network. A packet filter router 3408 is locatedbefore the web resources to limit traffic to HTTP only. In addition allsensitive servers in the architecture (firewall, web, application,database) have hardened operating systems implemented either with aspecific secure server or an add on software package.

Auditing services are provided in real time with Intrusion DetectionModules (IDM) 3410 on all critical services. Off line auditing isprovided with operating system security scanning tools to identifyvulnerabilities.

Implementation Considerations

Separation of duties is necessary to assure proper controls are bothimplemented and monitored. Security administration (adding/deletingusers, updating system configurations, etc.) should be performed by adifferent person than security auditing (review of logs, running OSsecurity scans, etc.)

A security policy is necessary to provide direction on what assetsshould be secured and what threats are of most concern.

Security standards are necessary to assure a consistent, secureconfiguration across multiple platforms and applications.

Administration procedures should be developed and implemented thatclearly outline the procedures administrators must follow for useradministration and system/security administration. Appropriateguidelines should be included with each procedure on the time requiredto perform it, and that time should be agreed to by the administratorand their manager.

Testing procedures and guidelines should be created for developing andmaintaining application code and architecture configuration.

Training programs should be outlined for those individuals fulfillingsecurity roles in the architecture. User training information shouldalso be developed and distributed in an easy to read and implementmanner. Special attention should be paid to the legal requirements forany disclaimer or policy statements which must be presented to thecustomer when accessing the site.

Collaboration

In the sample architecture shown in FIG. 35, a silicon chip designerwishes to have direct network access to several of their customers 3500in order to share specifications, distribute engineering designs, andcollaborate on works in progress. Corporate employees from headquarters3502, local offices 3504, or from a remote location 3506 can accessinformation stored on the web server or the back end database server.Employees also have the ability to access the simulation applicationwhich is web enabled. Customers may access design information that isposted on the web server, but cannot access back end systems. Thecustomer may also post information on their own web server or databaseserver to provide detailed specifications or information to the chipmanufacturer.

Security Business Priorities

Protecting sensitive resources on the internal network from unauthorizedexternal access

Protecting customer design information from access by hackers orcompetitors

Allowing a customer to access only their own information, not anothercustomer's information

Assuring design information maintains proper integrity

FIG. 36 depicts another exemplary Security Architecture which issuperior to the security architecture of FIG. 35.

Security Technical Description

Encryption services are provided in the security architecture of FIG. 36with Virtual Private Networking (VPN). The central corporate firewall3600 has a server VPN module 3602, and all remote customer locations arerequired to implement a VPN module on their firewall 3604 as well.Remote users 3606 will need client VPN software installed on their PCs.Remote users should also implement a local encrypting application thatwill encrypt the contents of sensitive directories on their hard drive.

Authentication services are provided to users at customer locations withdigital certificates. The central corporate headquarters will maintain aCA (Certificate Authority) to administer the certificates. The CA isintegrated with an LDAP server to store directory information. An RA(Registration Authority) is used to process certificate requests. Forusers at customer locations, the authentication occurs at the corporateweb server and is managed by the web server access control software.Stronger authentication is required for remote users because they haveincreased access in the internal network. Remote users therefore will beissued smart cards on which they will store their private key. Eachremote user will need a smart card reader for their PC.

Access control is provided by firewalls at entry points into both thecorporate headquarters network and the customer location. A secondaryfirewall is located behind the web server at corporate headquarters tofurther restrict access to more sensitive servers on the internalnetwork. An access control software package 3608 is used on the webservers to restrict access to specific web pages, files, anddirectories. In addition, all sensitive servers at corporateheadquarters (database, ftp, application, firewall, web) have hardenedoperating systems implemented either with a specific secure server or anadd on software package.

Integrity is provided with digital fingerprint technology at the ftpserver. As a user downloads a file to their PC, it is stamped with adigital fingerprint which uniquely identifies the time and the user thatdownloaded that file.

Auditing services are provided in real time with Intrusion DetectionModules (IDM) on all critical services. Off line auditing is providedwith operating system security scanning tools to identifyvulnerabilities.

Implementation Considerations

Separation of duties is necessary to assure proper controls are bothimplemented and monitored. Security administration (adding/deletingusers, updating system configurations, etc.) should be performed by adifferent person than security auditing (review of logs, running OSsecurity scans, etc.)

A security policy is necessary to provide direction on what assetsshould be secured and what threats are of most concern.

Security standards are necessary to assure a consistent, secureconfiguration across multiple platforms and applications.

Administration procedures should be developed and implemented thatclearly outline the procedures administrators must follow for useradministration and system/security administration. Appropriateguidelines should be included with each procedure on the time requiredto perform it, and that time should be agreed to by the administratorand their manager.

Testing procedures and guidelines should be created for developing andmaintaining application code and architecture configuration.

Training programs should be outlined for those individuals fulfillingsecurity roles in the architecture. User training information shouldalso be developed and distributed in an easy to read and implementmanner.

Interactive Customer Service

In the sample architecture shown in FIG. 37, customers 3700 of asoftware vendor are able to access the vendor's web site and attempt tosolve their technical problems without directly burdening the vendorcustomer support personnel. If an answer is not found, the customer cansend an email to the support organization, which can be responded to bya support representative. This architecture serves three differentapplications: 1) a customer client application, which produces a webinterface for accessing personalized and product specific online helpresources, including email, chat rooms, news groups, and full textsearches, 2) a customer support representative application which can beused to respond to a client user's request via email, chat, or news, and3) an administration application which enables the corporate web masterto easily change the look and feel of the support site for a company.

Functional Description

1. Customer launches a web browser and goes to the company's web siteand clicks on customer service

2. Web page has a menu of options including online technical support,chat room and upgrades/patches.

3. Online technical support consists of the ability to email a technicalsupport representative and get a reply by email or access an interactivedatabase 3702 of problems and solutions.

4. When the user clicks on the interactive support he will be asked aseries of questions to pinpoint the problem.

5. Another option at this point is for the user to enter the serialnumber of the product and for the web server to customize the help pagebased on what product the user has.

6. If the user is not satisfied with the help he receives there is achat room and or newsgroup to talk to a live customer supportrepresentative and other customers.

Security Business Priorities

Public perception that the company and web site is providing proper andeffective security

Protecting access to any information on the internal network,specifically customer-related information

Protecting the integrity of their web site and ensuring that it is notvandalized

An exemplary security architecture is illustrated in FIG. 38. Thisarchitecture provides more security than the architecture of FIG. 37.

Security Technical Description

Encryption services are not implemented in this architecture because noconfidential information is sent between the customer 3800 and the website.

Authentication services are provided at the company's web server 3802with a server side certificate signed by a leading CA provider.Customers are not authenticated. Internal users (i.e. administrators)are authenticated with their NT domain logon.

Access control is provided by a firewall 3804 at the entry point intothe company's internal network. A packet filter router 3806 is locatedbefore the web resources to limit traffic to HTTP and NNTP only. Inaddition all sensitive servers in the architecture (firewall, web,personalization, news, chat, email) have hardened operating systemsimplemented either with a specific secure server or an add on softwarepackage.

Auditing services are provided in real time with Intrusion DetectionModules (IDM) 3808 on all critical services. Off line auditing isprovided with operating system security scanning tools to identifyvulnerabilities.

Content filtering is provided at the chat server and the news server insoftware. This software will filter posted content based on apre-defined rule base to prohibit inappropriate material.

Implementation Considerations

Separation of duties is necessary to assure proper controls are bothimplemented and monitored. Security administration (adding/deletingusers, updating system configurations, etc.) should be performed by adifferent person than security auditing (review of logs, running OSsecurity scans, etc.)

A security policy is necessary to provide direction on what assetsshould be secured and what threats are of most concern.

Security standards are necessary to assure a consistent, secureconfiguration across multiple platforms and applications.

Administration procedures should be developed and implemented thatclearly outline the procedures administrators must follow for useradministration and system/security administration. Appropriateguidelines should be included with each procedure on the time requiredto perform it, and that time should be agreed to by the administratorand their manager.

Testing procedures and guidelines should be created for developing andmaintaining application code and architecture configuration.

Training programs should be outlined for those individuals fulfillingsecurity roles in the architecture. User training information shouldalso be developed and distributed in an easy to read and implementmanner. Special attention should be paid to the legal requirements forany disclaimer or policy statements which must be presented to thecustomer when accessing the service.

Internet Home Banking

FIG. 39 illustrates an exemplary architecture. In this samplearchitecture, customers 3900 are provided with the capability to accessaccount information, pay bills, order checks, and transfer funds betweentheir multiple accounts. The customer will use a PC to dial their ISP3902 and access the bank's web site. The client PC will be equipped withstandard HTML browser software, and HTTP communications capability forconnectivity to the server 3904 at the bank. An encrypted session isestablished between the client and the server using SSLv3. Once aconnection is established, the customer can request a service from thebank's web site. This request consists of the recall of an ASP or HTMLpage, using a secure SSL3/PCT session over TCP/IP.

Upon arrival of the request at the web server, VB Scripts or JScriptsare run as requested in the Active Server Pages. These scripts interactwith OLE/COM objects which reside on the application server. Theseobjects run application services to handle the information requested bythe user. The application services are in turn handled by transactionservices, which control object operations and data transactions on localand remote databases. The answer to the request is then sent back to theclient where it is translated from ASP to HTML, or handled by ActiveX.

Functional Description

1. Customer launches a web browser and goes to the bank's web site.

2. The encryption server creates a secure SSL session and requests alogin name and password.

3. Authentication is passed to the application server and verified.

4. The main page provides user with different options such as accountinformation, funds transfer, bill payments, portfolio management and aloan service center.

5. Customer wants to pay bills but first clicks on account informationto check his balance.

6. The web server requests the account information from the applicationserver which accesses the mainframe for the data.

7. Account information including balance, recent deposits and clearedchecks are returned to the web server and displayed on the user'scomputer.

8. User decides to pay bills and clicks on bill payment

9. User enters the name of the payee and the application server queriesthe mainframe for the payee's address and information about previouschecks written to this payee by the user.

10. User enters an amount and the date it should be paid.

11. Data is transferred to the application server and executed on theassigned date.

12. Money is then transferred out of the user's account and cleared withthe payee's bank through the banks clearing house.

13. User logs out and the SSL session ends.

Security Business Priorities

Public perception that the company and web site is secure and theirmoney is safe

Protecting access to any financial information on the internal network,specifically account and customer information

Preventing major financial losses involving multiple customer accounts

FIG. 40 depicts another exemplary Security Architecture which issuperior to the security architecture of FIG. 39.

Security Technical Description

Encryption services are provided between the client 4000 and the server4002 with SSLv3 using 128 bit session keys. The encrypted session isbetween the client PC and the encryption server 4004. Note that thisrequires clients to have browsers which support SSLv3.

Authentication services are provided with digital certificates.Customers will be issued personal digital certificates 4006, signed bythe root key for the bank. The encryption server will have a server sidecertificate signed by a leading PKI provider. Certificate managementservices will be outsourced, so that the bank will approve and denycertificate requests at the RA (Registration Authority), but certificaterevocation and management services will be provided by a PKI servicevendor 4008.

Access control is provided by a firewall 4010 at the entry point intothe bank's network. A packet filter router is placed in front of thefirewall server, and a choke router is placed behind the firewall inorder to provide some redundancy at this critical juncture. The firewallshould implement Network Address Translation (NAT) to protectconfiguration information of the bank's internal network. Customerprofiles which limit customer's access to the application and themainframe are maintained on a database off of the application server.Users are given unique IDs and privileges to access the application andthe mainframe. In addition all sensitive servers at the bank (firewall,encryption, application, web) have hardened operating systemsimplemented either with a specific secure server or an add on softwarepackage.

Integrity is provided with digital signatures on the transactionmessages sent from the client PC to the application server.

Auditing services are provided in real time with Intrusion DetectionModules (IDM) on all critical services. Off line auditing is providedwith operating system security scanning tools to identifyvulnerabilities. In addition, a single transaction ID is logged at eachpoint in the architecture to provide the ability to trace a singletransaction through multiple audit logs.

Implementation Considerations

Separation of duties is necessary to assure proper controls are bothimplemented and monitored. Security administration (adding/deletingusers, updating system configurations, etc.) should be performed by adifferent person than security auditing (review of logs, running OSsecurity scans, etc.)

A security policy is necessary to provide direction on what assetsshould be secured and what threats are of most concern.

Security standards are necessary to assure a consistent, secureconfiguration across multiple platforms and applications.

Administration procedures should be developed and implemented thatclearly outline the procedures administrators must follow for useradministration and system/security administration. Appropriateguidelines should be included with each procedure on the time requiredto perform it, and that time should be agreed to by the administratorand their manager.

Testing procedures and guidelines should be created for developing andmaintaining application code and architecture configuration.

Training programs should be outlined for those individuals fulfillingsecurity roles in the architecture. User training information shouldalso be developed and distributed in an easy to read and implementmanner. Special attention should be paid to the legal requirements forany disclaimer or policy statements which must be presented to thecustomer when accessing the home banking site.

Online Storefront/Product Sales

In the sample architecture illustrated in FIG. 41, all visitors 4100will be provided access to a retail venue selling a variety of goodsencompassing many merchants. Users will see a different default storedepending on their particular interests and corresponding profiles. Thecustomer is able to view all products in an encapsulated format wherelimited product information is shown. When a product is selected,descriptions, pricing, incentives, and other details can be shown. Thecustomer can place items in a shopping basket, as well as viewing anddeleting items already in the basket. To purchase all the items in abasket, the users shipping and billing information, credit cardinformation, and an email address.

In a sample transaction, the customer will dial into their ISP and surfto the shopping mall site. The web server 4102 will then request acookie from the user's web browser to determine if they have used theservice before, and if they have a personalization profile. If the userhas a cookie, the web server will request the personalization profilefrom the application server 4104 and present it to the user. The userthen can browse through the site, selecting different objects from eachmerchant's page and placing those objects in a shopping cart. Theshopping cart is maintained at the application server. If the userdecides to purchase the items in the shopping cart, he will click theBuy Now button, and will be prompted for shipping and paymentinformation. This information is gathered by the web server and sentback to the application server. The application server then routes it tothe payment services function at the bottom of the picture. Paymentservices will validate the credit card, and send back a positive ornegative response. Once the payment has been approved, an entry is madein a payment file for each merchant whose goods were purchased. Thispayment file is transferred hourly to each merchant for orderprocessing.

Functional Description

1. Customer launches a web browser and goes to the retail venue's website

2. With a cookie, the retailer's application server can identify thecustomer and choose a merchant to display on the front page. In additionit can tailor the merchant's interactive catalog of products tohighlight those products which would be of interest to the customer

3. Customer selects items and gets a detailed description of the itemincluding its price.

4. When customer likes an item a button is pressed and it is added to avirtual shopping cart

5. Customer clicks on check out which transfers the customer to a secureweb server and asks for a password or the creation of one for a firsttime shopper

6. Secure web server authenticates user and displays order and creditcard information

7. Customer has the opportunity to change order, credit card or shippinginformation then accepts the order.

8. Information is passed from the web server to the application serverwhich then routes it to a payment services function.

9. When the purchase is approved the web server sends an email to thecustomer to confirm the order.

10. The application server now routes the order/payment information tothe merchant's fulfillment system for shipment.

11. Another email is sent to the customer when the product is shipped.

Security Business Priorities

Public perception that the company and web site is providing proper andeffective security

Protecting their customer transactions and profile information frombeing captured or read

Preventing fraudulent transactions

Providing timely, confidential order files to member merchants

An exemplary security architecture is illustrated in FIG. 42. Thoughhaving a similar function, this architecture is superior to thearchitecture of FIG. 41.

Security Technical Description

Encryption services are provided between the client 4200 and the webserver 4202 at the storefront with SSLv3 using 128 bit session keys4204. Note that this requires clients to have browsers which supportSSLv3. To secure file transfer between the storefront and the merchants,a toolkit is used to implement encryption services at application server4206 (storefront) and the fulfillment server 4208 (merchant).

Authentication services are provided between the merchant and storefrontwith digital certificates, implemented with the same security toolkit asthe encryption services. Certificate management will be performed by thestorefront with a leading CA (Certificate Authority) product. An RA(Registration Authority) is used to process certificate requests.Customers will not be uniquely authenticated. The storefront web serverwill have a server side certificate signed by a leading CA provider toauthenticate itself to customers.

Access control is provided by a firewall at the entry point into thestorefront network. A packet filter router is located before the webserver to limit traffic to the web server to HTTP only. In addition allsensitive servers at the storefront (firewall, database, application,web) have hardened operating systems implemented either with a specificsecure server or an add on software package.

Integrity is provided on the file transfer between the merchant andstorefront with digital signatures implemented at the application serverand fulfillment server.

Auditing services are provided in real time with Intrusion DetectionModules (IDM) on all critical services. Off line auditing is providedwith operating system security scanning tools to identifyvulnerabilities.

Fraud Services are provided by a separate company that specializes insecure payment technologies. The storefront will collect order andpayment information from the customers, and will pass this informationto the payment/fraud services company to check the credit card numbersfor fraud attempts, and to approve and process the transactions. Anencryption toolkit is used between the application server and thepayment services architecture to secure the transactions between the twonetworks.

Implementation Considerations

Separation of duties is necessary to assure proper controls are bothimplemented and monitored. Security administration (adding/deletingusers, updating system configurations, etc.) should be performed by adifferent person than security auditing (review of logs, running OSsecurity scans, etc.)

A security policy is necessary to provide direction on what assetsshould be secured and what threats are of most concern.

Security standards are necessary to assure a consistent, secureconfiguration across multiple platforms and applications.

Administration procedures should be developed and implemented thatclearly outline the procedures administrators must follow for useradministration and system/security administration. Appropriateguidelines should be included with each procedure on the time requiredto perform it, and that time should be agreed to by the administratorand their manager.

Testing procedures and guidelines should be created for developing andmaintaining application code and architecture configuration.

Training programs should be outlined for those individuals fulfillingsecurity roles in the architecture. User training information shouldalso be developed and distributed in an easy to read and implementmanner. Special attention should be paid to the legal requirements forany disclaimer or policy statements which must be presented to thecustomer when accessing the storefront.

Decision Support 1016

FIG. 43 illustrates a flowchart for a method 4300 for manipulating dataabout a customer in an e-Commerce environment. In operation 4302, ane-Commerce application is provided which allows the purchase of productsor services. Information about a customer is received from thee-Commerce application and analyzed (see operations 4304 and 4306). Thisinformation includes an amount of purchases made by the customer andtimes at which the purchases occurred. The analysis of the informationabout the customer is stored in operation 4308 and a decision supportservice for managing the e-Commerce application is provided in operation4310 based on the analysis of the information about the customer.

The information about the customer may be analyzed to identify afrequency and magnitude of purchases made by the customer. The decisionsupport service may be designed to manage advertisements included withthe e-Commerce application.

As an option, the decision support service may be designed to managepromotions included with the e-Commerce application. As an additionaloption, the information may also include demographics of the customer.Further, reporting tools may also be provided for reporting unfulfilledmerchandise, sales tax, goods sold, back order items, sales forecasting,and activity on the e-Commerce application.

An optimized eCommerce implementation will allow the integration ofeCommerce-related data to be used by a company's decision supportsystem, shown in FIG. 44. ECommerce applications will generate anenormous amount of data about customer spending habits and othercustomer information. To leverage this information to its fullestextent, information systems should be integrated to allow themanipulation and evaluation of this data by the appropriate user groups.

The decision support services for an eCommerce solution are consistentwith any other implementation. Listed below are some specific decisionsupport services to consider in the context of an eCommerce application.

Customer Data Services

Services can be designed for capturing, analyzing, and storing customerbehaviors. The information gathered would be very similar to a profilingservices described in complex personalization.

Market Data Services

Market Data Services are designed to analyze customer data. This data isused to accurately target promotions and advertising to the appropriateuser groups. For example, marketing may be interested to know thedemographics of the people browsing the eCommerce site to moreeffectively sell advertising.

Site Reporting

Site reports may enhance the overall efficiency of the site. Reportingtools and procedures should be put in place to at least cover the basicsite needs. Some basic reporting needs may include transaction report,unfulfilled merchandise, sales tax, goods sold, back order items, salesforecasting and site activity.

Integration 1018

FIG. 45 illustrates the Integration component 1018 of the eCommerceApplication Framework in accordance with one embodiment of the presentinvention. Integration will be a critical factor in the success andadvancement of eCommerce. The topic of integration may be related tomany aspects of eCommerce, each of which should be considered whenassessing the enterprise's overall strategy.

FIG. 46 illustrates a flowchart for a method 4600 for integrating ane-Commerce component into an existing framework of an enterprise. Anunderlying architecture of the e-Commerce component is analyzed andcompared with an architecture of the framework of the enterprise inoperations 4602 and 4604. A determination is made in operation 4606 asto whether the e-Commerce component is compatible with the framework ofthe enterprise. The e-Commerce component is integrated with both thearchitecture of the framework of the enterprise and with capabilities ofthe framework of the enterprise in operations 4608 and 4610. Adetermination is also made as to whether the e-Commerce componentrequires an additional capability in operation 4612. If so, theadditional capability is added as an enterprise capability. Preferably,other applications of the framework of the enterprise can utilize theadditional capability.

Custom HTML tags may be provided for enhancing a presentation of thee-Commerce component. Also, templates and/or wizards may be provided forcreating e-Commerce applications and/or interfaces. Preferably, anintegration of the e-Commerce component with data of the framework ofthe enterprise is performed.

Ideally, a business's eCommerce strategy should integrate into thebusiness's enterprise strategy. Following the same logic, the eCommercesystems should also be integrated into the enterprise's architecture andsystems. In most cases, eCommerce implementations are a separate entity,added in a furious haste with little consideration of integration withthe enterprise. As a result, numerous integration patches need to beimplemented to synch data (such as order, customer, and product) withthe enterprise. Furthermore, this will result in additional maintenanceas the enterprise strategy and eCommerce evolve. If the eCommercestrategy requires an immediate presence, a concurrent effort should bemade to understand how the eCommerce systems should be integrated intothe enterprise's overall strategy.

Ideally, the eCommerce strategy should be implemented as an enterprisesystem, integrated with the existing enterprise architecture,capabilities, and data. If the eCommerce system needs additionalcapabilities, these should be assessed and potentially added asenterprise capabilities. For example, if the enterprise does not supportcomplex personalization, these capabilities should be introduced as anenterprise capability rather than just an eCommerce capability. Otherenterprise applications could utilize these capabilities in the future.

External Enterprise Integration

In many cases the eCommerce implementation will span multipleenterprises. Implementing a buyer-centric or trading partner typesolution will involve multiple enterprises. In these cases, theintegration aspect will often prove to be the key factor to the successof the implementation. Some of the key hurdles for a multi-enterprisesystem are:

Data model compatibility

Technical infrastructure

Messaging formats

Adoption hurdle; The addition of new trading partners should be a quickand easy process

Collaborative environment promoting interactivity

Implementation Considerations

An eCommerce system can be added as a package or one component at atime. Here are some key considerations concerning package integration.

Underlying Architecture

The package's underlying architecture should be analyzed and comparedwith the enterprise's system.

Data Model

Does the package introduce a proprietary data model?

Commerce Capabilities

How much of the commerce capabilities does it provide? For example, inmerchandising and transaction processing, how different are the commercecapabilities offered from those desired? Does it provide open API's?

Component Integration

The commerce package itself may need to integrate components such aspayment systems, tax software or other components. Research on whatoptions can be integrated may be important. Some packages may not becompatible with any other components and require use of theirproprietary components.

Custom HTML Tags

Some packages will provide custom HTML tags in order to enhance thepresentation. Utilization of these tags may result in a less open andmore proprietary system. Be sure to understand the impacts using thesetags may have (Will they work with all browsers? How will these bechanged in future release?).

Templates and Wizards

Many of the eCommerce packages provide templates and wizards to createsome of the basic eCommerce applications and interfaces. The templatesand wizards may reduce some development time by providing this base.They should only be considered a starting point for the development ofrobust eCommerce applications. In most cases, creating an interface tothe implementation's specific needs will require considerable additionalcustomization.

While various embodiments have been described above, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment shouldnot be limited by any of the above described exemplary embodiments, butshould be defined only in accordance with the following claims and theirequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for interacting with a user over anetwork for personalizing a website, comprising the steps of: (a)identifying a user; (b) collecting information about the user; (c)building a profile of the user based on the collected information; (d)managing a plurality of different contents; (e) analyzing the profileand the contents in order to match attributes of the profile of the userand attributes of the contents; (f) selecting the contents which haveattributes that match the attributes of the profile of the user; (g)delivering the selected contents to the user; (h) allowing the user tomanually select which of the delivered contents are depicted on adisplay; and (i) allowing the user to selectively position the deliveredcontents on the display, wherein the step of allowing the user tomanually select and the step of allowing the user to selectivelyposition enable the user to customize the website.
 2. A method asrecited in claim 1, wherein the step of analyzing the profile occurs inreal time.
 3. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising thestep of identifying a time when the user last viewed the contents, andindicating portions of the contents that have been modified or addedsince the time when the user last viewed the contents.
 4. A method asrecited in claim 1, wherein the user is identified by using a cookie,receiving user input, and digital certificates.
 5. A method as recitedin claim 1, further comprising the step of allowing the user to rate thecontents.
 6. A method as recited in claim 1, and further comprising thesteps of: (a) selecting a potential customer from a plurality of users;(b) performing an act to entice the potential customer to become a realcustomer; (c) conducting an activity to retain a current customer; and(d) providing a demand generating application.
 7. A computer programembodied on a computer readable medium for interacting with a user overa network for personalizing a website, comprising: (a) a code segmentthat identifies a user; (b) a code segment that collects informationabout the user; (c) a code segment that builds a profile of the userbased on the collected information; (d) a code segment that manages aplurality of different contents; (e) a code segment that analyzes theprofile and the contents in order to match attributes of the profile ofthe user and attributes of the contents; (f) a code segment that selectsthe contents which have attributes that match the attributes of theprofile of the user; (g) a code segment that delivers the selectedcontents to the user; (h) a code segment that allows the user tomanually select which of the delivered contents are depicted on adisplay; and (i) a code segment that allows the user to selectivelyposition the delivered contents on the display, wherein the step ofallowing the user to manually select and the step of allowing the userto selectively position enable the user to customize the website.
 8. Acomputer program as recited in claim 7, wherein the code segment thatanalyzes the profile occurs in real time.
 9. A computer program asrecited in claim 7, further comprising a code segment that identifies atime when the user last viewed the contents, and indicates portions ofthe contents that have been modified or added since the time when theuser last viewed the contents.
 10. A computer program as recited inclaim 7, wherein the user is identified by using a cookie, receivinguser input, and digital certificates.
 11. A computer program as recitedin claim 7, further comprising a code segment that allows the user torate the contents.
 12. A computer program as recited in claim 7, andfurther comprising: (a) a code segment that selects a potential customerfrom a plurality of users; (b) a code segment that performs an act toentice the potential customer to become a real customer; (c) a codesegment that conducts an activity to retain a current customer; and (d)a code segment that provides a demand generating application.
 13. Asystem for interacting with a user over a network for personalizing awebsite, comprising: (a) logic that identifies a user; (b) logic thatcollects information about the user; (c) logic that builds a profile ofthe user based on the collected information; (d) logic that manages aplurality of different contents; (e) logic that analyzes the profile andthe contents in order to match attributes of the profile of the user andattributes of the contents; (f) logic that selects the contents whichhave attributes that match the attributes of the profile of the user;(g) logic that delivers the selected contents to the user; (h) logicthat allows the user to manually select which of the delivered contentsare depicted on a display; and (i) logic that allows the user toselectively position the delivered contents on the display, wherein thestep of allowing the user to manually select and the step of allowingthe user to selectively position enable the user to customize thewebsite.
 14. A system as recited in claim 13, wherein logic thatanalyzes the profile occurs in real time.
 15. A system as recited inclaim 13, further comprising logic that identifies a time when the userlast viewed the contents, and indicates portions of the contents thathave been modified or added since the time when the user last viewed thecontents.
 16. A system as recited in claim 13, wherein the user isidentified by using a cookie, receiving user input, and digitalcertificates.
 17. A system as recited in claim 13, fierier comprisinglogic that allows the user to rate the contents.
 18. A system as recitedin claim 13, and further comprising: (a) logic that selects a potentialcustomer from a plurality of users; (b) logic that performs an act toentice the potential customer to become a real customer; (c) logic thatconducts an activity to retain a current customer; and (d) logic thatprovides a demand generating application.